Farouk Cassim

Mahomed Farouk Cassim is a South African politician who served in the National Assembly and in the apartheid-era House of Delegates. After leaving the National Assembly in 2003, he joined the Congress of the People (COPE) and represented COPE as a local councillor in the City of Cape Town.

Cassim represented the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in the National Assembly from 1994 until March 2003, when he crossed the floor to the Peace and Justice Congress (PJC). In June 2003, following a dispute with the PJC, he resigned from Parliament and as Deputy Chairperson of Committees.

Early life and career Cassim is from Stanger in the former Natal province. He has a master's degree from the University of South Africa and wrote his dissertation about the poetry of Ezra Pound. Mark Gevisser said that Cassim "was, by all accounts, far and away the most able politician in the House of Delegates". In the 1994 election, he was elected to an IFP seat in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament. He was re-elected to a second term in the 1999 general election, and during his second term he was appointed as Deputy Chairperson of Committees as a result of an agreement between the IFP and the governing African National Congress (ANC). He was also a member of the IFP's national council. Cassim said that he would not apologise as "a matter of conscience", saying of racist tendencies that "we need to pick it up now and smash it before it becomes entrenched". Cassim strongly denied this in a letter to the editor. However, when the floor-crossing period began in March 2003, Cassim announced that he would leave the IFP – not for the ANC but to a new party, the PJC. and therefore as its de facto caucus leader.

Within months, his relationship with the PJC had soured. In mid-June 2003, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Frene Ginwala, announced that Cassim had resigned both from the Deputy Chairperson position and from his legislative seat. In the 2014 general election, he stood unsuccessfully for election to Parliament under COPE's banner, ranked ninth on the party's national party list.

Local government In the 2016 local elections, Cassim stood as COPE's candidate for election as Mayor of Cape Town. Though not elected to the mayoral office, he represented COPE in the City of Cape Town Council for the next five years and stood again as COPE's mayoral candidate in the 2021 local elections.

Personal life Cassim is married. His wife is a first cousin of Kader Asmal.