Tokozile Xasa

In the April 2009 general election, Xasa was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of the South African Parliament.^[8] After the election, President Jacob Zuma named her as his Deputy Minister of Tourism; she served under Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk in what was a newly created portfolio.^[9] She was retained in the position after the May 2014 general election, now under Minister Derek Hanekom.^[10] Indeed, she ultimately served nearly eight years in the position, and throughout that time maintained a "low profile", though she served concurrently as the national spokesperson of the ANC Women's League.^[11]

On the night of 30 March 2017, Zuma announced a controversial cabinet reshuffle, in which Xasa was appointed to replace Hanekom as Minister of Tourism.^[12] Elizabeth Thabethe was named as her deputy.^[13] She was the first woman to lead the ministry. During her year in the position, the ministry completed a revised ten-year national tourism sector strategy, approved by cabinet, and the Department of Tourism received a clean audit; however, the Mail & Guardian nonetheless said that, given her long experience in the portfolio, her performance had been "a disappointment so far", particularly insofar as she had not driven growth in tourism demand.^[14]

Xasa continued to be viewed as a "low key" politician.^[15] However, in June 2017, she caused a minor stir when she revealed in an answer to a parliamentary question that SA Tourism, an agency under her oversight, had a multi-million-rand contract with Bell Pottinger, the public relations firm that had recently been linked to disinformation campaigns by the Gupta family and Duduzane Zuma. SA Tourism's United Kingdom office had paid the firm R9.6 million for public relations and communications services over three years.^[16] The contract had been awarded prior to Xasa's promotion and prior to Bell Pottinger's engagements with the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma,^[17] but the opposition Democratic Alliance nonetheless said that it would seek to have Xasa justify the expenditure before the Portfolio Committee on Tourism.^[18]

In September 2017, Xasa was elected to a two-year term as one of two deputy chairpersons of the United Nations World Tourism Organization's Regional Commission for Africa. She served under chairperson Najib Balala of Kenya and alongside Hamat Bah of Gambia.^[19] Three months later, she attended the ANC's 54th National Conference at Nasrec, where she was elected to a five-year term as a member of the party's National Executive Committee. By number of votes received, she was ranked 70th of the 80 members elected to the committee.^[20]

On 26 February 2018, Cyril Ramaphosa, who had recently succeeded Zuma as president, announced a major cabinet reshuffle, in which Xasa was named to succeed Thulas Nxesi as Minister of Sport and Recreation.^[21] She was the first woman to hold the office.^[15] She said that her priorities would include school sport and community sport infrastructure, as well as racial transformation in sporting bodies to ensure equality of opportunity.^[22] She was a prominent figure in the South African defence of athlete Caster Semenya: when the International Association of Athletics Federations announced its 2018 testosterone policy change for women athletes, Xasa condemned the new policy as "very sexist, very racial and homophobic",^[23] and in February 2019 she accompanied Semenya to Lausanne, Switzerland to challenge the policy at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.^[24]

In the next general election in May 2019, Xasa was comfortably re-elected to the National Assembly, ranked 30th on the ANC's national party list.^[8] However, Ramaphosa sacked her from his second cabinet, appointing Nathi Mthethwa to replace her in a newly enlarged portfolio as Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture.^[25] Shortly after Ramaphosa's cabinet announcement, the ANC announced that Xasa had resigned from her legislative seat.^[26]

Ramaphosa subsequently designated her as South African Ambassador to Belgium, with non-resident accreditation to Luxembourg and the European Union. She arrived in Brussels in December 2020 and presented her credentials on 2 February 2021.^[27] She was not re-elected to the ANC National Executive Committee when her term expired at the party's 55th National Conference in December 2022.^[28]

• Ms Thokozile Xasa at People's Assembly