PA shows its true colours

Author Mandy Wiener shared on her Radio 702 show about how, in writing her latest book, The Deal, she interviewed Patriotic Alliance’s (PA) president, Gayton McKenzie.

- Sydney Majoko

He tells a self-deprecating story about meeting the ANC about being part of the government of national unity (GNU) after the 2024 general election.

The minister of sports, arts and culture makes it clear that he did not walk into the negotiations with a set of demands for the humbled ANC, which had to grovel to parties it never needed to form a government.

McKenzie and his relatively new kid-on-block PA had become the kingmakers, a title which had previously given the EFF and some other smaller parties the power to demand big concessions from the ANC.

McKenzie says: “I never demanded to be made minister” but as the beautifully told story goes, he made it clear that the ANC could not give him a “VW Citi Golf when it had given others a Lamborghini”.

Merely a year later, the demonstration of humility and self-effacement that was put on at the GNU negotiation is no longer evident.

That is because it was put on for show.