Jacobus Albert Rabie (August 1938 – 29 April 2008) was a South African politician who was Minister for Population Development under President F. W. de Klerk from 1993 to 1994. He served in the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

-era

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

throughout its lifespan from 1984 to 1994, representing the

Reiger Park Reiger Park is a coloured township situated in Boksburg in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, Gauteng, South Africa. It was established as Stirtonville after the Second World War when people influxed from rural areas seeking work on the g ...

constituency, and subsequently served one term in the post-apartheid

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

from 1994 to 1999. Rabie entered politics as Reiger Park's representative on the Coloured Representative Council, where he was a member throughout the council's existence from 1969 to 1980. He joined the council as a member of the Federal Coloured People's Party but, after being expelled from the party, he sat as an independent before joining the Labour Party in 1978. He became the Labour Party's chairman in the

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal. * South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...

in 1982 and was elected to the House of Representatives under its banner when the

Tricameral Parliament The Tricameral Parliament, officially the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, was the legislature of South Africa between 1984 and 1994, established by the South African Constitution of 1983, which gave a limited political voice to ...

was established in 1984. During his first term in the house, he split from the Labour Party to establish the United Democratic Party. He joined the governing National Party (NP) in 1991 and represented it in the National Assembly after the

end of apartheid The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of bilateral and multi-party negotiations between 1990 and 1993. The negotiations culminated in the passage of a new interim Constitution in 1993, a precursor to the Constitution ...

in 1994.

Early life and career

Rabie was born in

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

in the former

in August 1938. His father was

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and his mother was a Coloured domestic worker. The government evicted the family from their farm when Rabie was a child and they moved to

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...

, where Rabie matriculated in 1958 at Pretoria Indian Boys' School. He trained as a teacher in Coronationville and took up his first teaching post in Potchefstroom in 1966. He left teaching after two years due to disputes with the teaching authorities, and by then he was active in the Federal Coloured People's Party (FCPP), having become an organiser for the party in the Transvaal in 1967. In 1969, the party nominated him to sit on the Coloured Representative Council as the representative of the

constituency in

Boksburg Boksburg is a city on the East Rand of Gauteng province of South Africa. Gold was discovered in Boksburg in 1887. Boksburg was named after the State Secretary of the South African Republic, W. Eduard Bok. The Main Reef Road linked Boksburg ...

, Transvaal. After launching an unsuccessful bid to become leader of the FCPP in 1975, Rabie fell out with the new party leadership, among other things over his support for political proposals which would see independent Coloured homelands established in each of South Africa's provinces. He was expelled from the party and sat in the CRC as an independent for three-and-a-half years, becoming the unofficial leader of the independents' caucus in the council. He joined the Labour Party in 1978 and continued to serve on the CRC until it was disbanded in 1980.

Parliament

Tricameral Parliament: 1984–1994

In 1982, Rabie elected as the chairman of the Labour Party's Transvaal regional branch, and he continued in that position after losing a campaign to be elected the party's national chairman in January 1984. In the 1984 general election, Rabie was elected to represent the Reiger Park constituency in the

, the all-Coloured house of the new

. During the legislative term that followed, Rabie split from the Labour Party in protest of its accommodating stance towards the government, though reportedly also due to "personality clashes" with the Labour Party's leadership. He subsequently formed the breakaway United Democratic Party (UDP), which in the 1989 general election won three seats in the House of Representatives, among them Rabie's seat in Reiger Park. As leader of the UDP, Rabie advocated for the abolition of the

Group Areas Act Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system o ...

and of the racially segregated Tricameral Parliament. In May 1991, Rabie disbanded the UDP, and he and his colleagues joined the governing National Party (NP). In February 1993, during an advanced stage of South Africa's democratic transition, he was appointed to the cabinet of President F. W. de Klerk, who named him as Minister for Population Development.

National Assembly: 1994–1999

After South Africa's first post-apartheid elections in 1994, Rabie served a term in the post-apartheid Parliament, representing the NP in the new multi-racial

Personal life and death

In 1962, Rabie married Angeline Rabie (née Roos), with whom he had four sons and one daughter. He later remarried to Sandra Rabie. On 14 December 2006, Sandra, then aged 47, was killed during a robbery at their home in Windmill Park on the

East Rand The East Rand is the urban eastern part of the Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation in South Africa. The region extends from Alberton in the west to Nigel in the east, and south down to Nigel. It includ ...

; both Rabie and the couple's adopted son were present. She died of a broken neck on the scene. Three men, including one teenager whom the Rabies knew personally, were charged with the robbery and murder. Rabie himself died on 29 April 2008 at Sunward Park Hospital in Boksburg. He had been hospitalised with

cerebral atrophy Cerebral atrophy is a common feature of many of the diseases that affect the brain. Atrophy of any tissue means a decrement in the size of the cell, which can be due to progressive loss of cytoplasmic proteins. In brain tissue, atrophy describes ...

, which his family said was aggravated by the trauma of his wife's murder.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabie, Jac 1938 births 2008 deaths Coloured South African people People from Middelburg, Mpumalanga Members of the National Assembly of South Africa 20th-century South African politicians Labour Party (South Africa, 1969) politicians National Party (South Africa) politicians