After more than a year of vacancy at the highest diplomatic post between Pretoria and Washington, South Africa has filled its ambassadorial slot to the United States with a figure whose legacy is deeply tied to the country’s historic transition from racial segregation to democracy. The office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed on Wednesday that 78-year-old Roelf Meyer, a former senior official in the final apartheid-era national government, will take up the role immediately.
The position has sat empty since last year, when former ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was expelled from Washington after publicly criticizing then-President Donald Trump, accusing him of dog-whistle politics that centered and amplified white victimhood. The expulsion exacerbated tensions between the two nations, a rift that deepened dramatically following Trump’s return to the US presidency earlier this year.
Meyer’s selection carries profound historical weight, as he and Ramaphosa once stood on opposite sides of the table during the 1990s negotiations that dismantled South Africa’s system of white-minority apartheid rule. At the time, Meyer served as the chief negotiator for the National Party – the political organization that first implemented apartheid in 1948 – while Ramaphosa led negotiations for Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), the anti-apartheid movement that would go on to lead post-transition South Africa.
Following the successful conclusion of negotiations and the country’s first multiracial democratic elections in 1994, Meyer remained in government as a member of the landmark unity administration formed by President Mandela. His long track record of bridging deep political and racial divides to deliver historic democratic change is widely seen as a key factor behind his appointment to the sensitive US posting at a time of particularly fraught bilateral relations.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya officially verified the appointment in a statement to the BBC, confirming that the nomination would go into effect without delay. “I can confirm that President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Meyer as South Africa’s ambassador to the US,” Magwenya said.