The ANC activist was a leading figure for decades in South Africa's political landscape and a staunch fighter in the battle against apartheid.

Essop Pahad has passed away, aged 84. The ANC struggle stalwart was the Minister in the Office of the Presidency in the Thabo Mbeki administration. He served between 1999 and 2008. According to his family spokesperson Dr Faizel Randera, Pahad died peacefully in his sleep early on Thursday.

His younger brother Junaid, passed away this past Saturday.

Born on 21 June 1939, in Schweizer-Reneke in North West, he grew up in a family of political activists. His father Goolam Pahad was a leading member of the Transvaal Indian Congress and the South African Indian Congress.

After the banning of the ANC in 1960, like his father before him, Essop joined the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress (TIYC). He was part of the TIYC volunteers and was responsible for producing and distributing ANC pamphlets and posters in the 1960s.

In 1962, Pahad was arrested for organising an illegal strike and in 1964, he was banned for five years and exiled. While in exile, he became more actively involved with the ANC and served in leadership structures of the party and then later of the South African Communist Party (SACP).

After South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, Pahad served as the...