Gayton McKenzie threatens to leave GNU if PA doesn’t get Cabinet post

Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie has warned President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Africa National Congress (ANC) that if his party does not get a Cabinet post, they will leave the government of national unity (GNU).

All eyes will be on Ramaphosa on Sunday night when he finally announces his much-anticipated new Cabinet in his GNU at 9pm.

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After a wildly unsuccessful election for the ANC, the new cabinet is expected to be a historic moment in South Africa and the most politically diverse since the end of apartheid.

The last time the country had a coalition government was under late president Nelson Mandela in 1994, when he appointed FW de Klerk as a deputy president and 10 ministers from the National Party and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

Cabinet post demand

While the Democratics Alliance (DA) getting at least six Cabinet positions, McKenzie is hoping the PA will also get a post, failing which, he threatened the party will leave the GNU arrangement.

“I can’t have the people that voted for us to be humiliated,” he told eNCA.

“If they don’t give us a post in cabinet tonight, we’re out. The majority of people, the people that voted for us need to be represented.

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“If you say we are not worthy to be there, with nine seats in Parliament, we can use our nine seats elsewhere. We play a long game. I know how this story is going to end, I know politics.

Tomorrow politics might change, our nine seats might be two percent now, but that two percent might become important in the future.

I personally don’t think he (Ramaphosa) is going to leave us out of the cabinet.

But if he does, I will have no bad word for him as the president or the ANC. I joined voluntarily, I will leave voluntarily,” McKenzie said.

GNU agreement

Ramaphosa’s cabinet announcement comes after DA leader John Steenhuisen confirmed that a Friday meeting to mend relations with the president had yielded positive results.

After electing Ramaphosa for a second term during the first sitting of Parliament on 15 June, the coalition has been thrashing out his executive.

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