Former South African ambassador to United States Ebrahim Rasool is expected back home.
Image: File
As South Africa prepares to receive former Ambassador to the United States Ebrahim Rasool who was expelled by the State Department in Washington last week, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation in Pretoria says efforts are underway to replace him.
IOL has previously reported that Rasool was expelled from the USA on Friday, after sharing his opinion on Donald Trump’s presidency during a webinar.
Rasool previously served as SA ambassador to the US during the Barack Obama administration between 2010 and 2015. He was re-appointed in January 2025, as ambassador during the Joe Biden and then Donald Trump administration.
Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ronald Lamola told broadcaster Newzroom Afrika that Dirco will make a recommendation to President Cyril Ramaphosa before the president applies his mind.
“The process has started to some extent so that we can make a recommendation to the president (Ramaphosa), internally so the department will attend to the internal issues once the person has been duly nominated. This person will be presented, the name, to the president and of course the president will decide,” he said.
“That will require us to follow the processes of the Foreign Services Act, which can take a life of their own, but that is why we have started in the interim all the administrative processes, so that the other processes with other sister departments are expedited.”
During the Newzroom Afrika interview, Phiri could not be drawn into the discussion on whether a specific individual has already been identified, save to say the internal processes of Dirco had begun.
South Africa's expelled ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool.
Image: Supplied
The webinar which got Rasool into the firing line was held by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra) where Rasool made the remarks. The theme was 'Implications of changes in US administrations for SA and Africa'.
During the webinar, Rasool said people should get hold of the framework document of South Africa’s national interests — because this is going to be a guide for South Africa during these very turbulent moments that we are navigating between our values and our interests.
Rasool was also concerned about the level of respect South Africa receives on the issue of the G20 because the country needs to do a handover from South Africa to the US, the presidency of the G20.
Rasool’s opinion was: “Those who are in power by mobilising a supremacism against the incumbency at home in the domestic politics of the US, the Make America Great Again movement— as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the US, in which the voting electorate in the US is projected to become 48% white, and the possibility of a majority of minorities is looming on the horizon”.
Rasool spoke of the bread-and-butter issues, the budget, the Afrikaner issue, and the fact that the key posts in the US administration are not yet filled.
Rasool said there were many continuities in the Trump administration that are inherited from the Joe Biden administration where “the resistance to the emerging multipolarity in the world started to be articulated”.
Meanwhile, on Monday IOL reported that Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the Western Cape has vowed to give a hero’s welcome to Rasool when he returns to the province, calling on the South African government to expel the US ambassador in response.
Malvern de Bruyn, Cosatu’s provincial secretary in the Western Cape made the remarks over the weekend after the conclusion of the union’s sixth provincial conference.
jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za
IOL
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