Cape Town – Former DA leader Mmusi Maimane has claimed that the party suspended MP Renaldo Gouws due to pressure from the ANC.
A video of Gouws using racist language has sparked public outrage, questioning his MP status.
According to The Citizen, Maimane asserted that the DA had ignored similar behaviour from other members, only acting now because of the ANC’s discomfort.
“The DAis only dealing with this because it is uncomfortable for the ANC to be confronted with the situation that it is confronted with. I can troll through the social media accounts of people in the DA and you can discover many things. You will discover their views,” the report quoted him as saying said.
Maimane criticised the DA’s past inaction on racist views among its members and suggested the current move is politically motivated.
“This is only being done because the ANC realises it would have to explain to its electorate why it is associated with this man.”
The DA suspended Gouws after an old video where the MP was seen using violent, racist language resurfaced online.
The party said that Gouws, who was sworn into parliament last week after general elections on May 29, would face disciplinary charges before the party’s legal commission, AFP reported.
“The DA has established that the video, in which Renaldo Gouws uses execrable language, is in fact genuine and not a fake as initially suspected,” the party said.
“The DA Federal Executive has therefore suspended Mr Gouws with immediate effect.”
The issue came at a delicate political time.
Last week, the DA struck a coalition deal with the long-ruling African National Congress (ANC) and several other smaller groups after the elections failed to produce an outright winner.
Negotiations to form a cabinet are still ongoing .
South Africa’s second largest party, the free-market DA has long struggled to shake off an image of representing the white minority.
Its inclusion in what the ANC – the party of the late Nelson Mandela – calls a government of national unity, has upset some within the former anti-apartheid movement.
It has also drawn criticism from the left.
The radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) shunned the coalition because of it and former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) denounced the government pact as a “white-led unholy alliance”.
South Africa’s human rights watchdog said on Thursday it would institute proceedings against Gouws for “hate speech and/or harassment”.
“Given Mr Gouws’ position as a Member of Parliament, his alleged actions carry even greater weight and responsibility,” the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said.
In the video, the lawmaker is heard calling for the killing of black South Africans and using racial slurs, while discussing a controversial anti-apartheid struggle song with the words “Kill the Boer”.
SAHRC said the clip was first published on Gouws’ YouTube channel in 2010.
Earlier this week, the 41-year-old “unreservedly” apologised for another old video where he is seen arguing that white South Africans suffer from reverse apartheid.
“I refute any claims of racism or being a racist. I can however see how my message was distorted in the way it was delivered by me and I take full responsibility for the actions of my younger and immature self,” Gouws wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
His suspension comes a day after President Cyril Ramaphosa was inaugurated for a second full term.
He was re-elected by parliament with support from the DA, the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party, the anti-immigration Patriotic Alliance and the small centre-left GOOD party.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
Additional information by AFP
