Member National Executive Committee, ANC
Director General in the office of the Deputy President (1994 - June 1999)
Director-General in office of the President (Since June 1999)
As general secretary of the influential South African Council of Churches, this influential leader has the difficult task of taking his organisation through this period of change, drawing more conservative churches back into the SACC and leading the churches into the elections. He is struggling to throw off an image of the SACC as "the ANC at prayer" and recast it as a peacemaking and mediating body.
Chikane was schooled in the Black Consciousness Movement on the campuses during the 1970s, his education repeatedly interrupted by detention. In 1979 he trained as a pastor in the Apostolic Faith Mission, but was defrocked because of his political activities. He was only recently reinstated and now heads the black section of the still-segregated church.
His allegiances switched to the United Democratic Front in the 1980s and he was elected SACC general secretary in 1987.
Chikane was elected to the NEC of the ANC at the 50th National Conference of the ANC in Mafikeng, 16 - 20 December 1997.
He worked in the office of the Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki (1994 - June 1999)
Currently he works in the office of the President, Thabo Mbeki as the Director-General (Since June 1999)