GARETH VAN ONSELEN: Back to the future with Ebrahim Rasool
If Rasool drives the kind of racial messaging he did when in power, the ANC’s problems in the Western Cape will remain far from solved
Ebrahim Rasool is a party man. There is much evidence for this, but amongst it all, the following story best captures his commitment: On August 24 2006, Tony Yengeni was due to report to Pollsmoor Prison, to begin serving his four-year sentence for fraud. After a small ANC delegation had visited his house in the morning, Yengeni arrived outside Pollsmoor prison at about 12pm in a black Range Rover sports car. (During that morning’s visit, the minister in the presidency at the time, Essop Pahad, had told reporters: "It is a very sad day. Tony is an old friend and he suffered a great deal for the Constitution. I am here to wish him well as a friend and a member of the NEC of the ANC.") Yengeni was greeted at the prison by about 500 supporters who carried him for half a kilometre on their shoulders, from his car to the prison gates. The crowd chanted and denounced Yengeni’s sentence as "a travesty of justice". They carried posters which said, among other things, "Yengeni is a leopard" ...
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