Kunene plays down PA’s poor showing at birthday celebration

Patriotic Alliance (PA) deputy president Kenny Kunene has claimed that those who have been seen burning party regalia were former members of the Democratic Alliance (DA) who were sent to join the party for three months and cause disruption.

Kunene made the claims while speaking to The Citizen during the Johannesburg Council sitting on Tuesday.

Several people in PA regalia have been seen on social media platforms burning regalia of the party.

This was after the party’s 10th birthday anniversary celebrations at Orlando Stadium in Soweto, which did not look as successful as the PA had anticipated.

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The disgruntled members have also accused the PA of being a racist party.

People who burnt party regalia had joined party from the DA

Kunene claimed that the people who had been burning party regalia were some who had joined the party from the DA.

“There are people who joined the party from the DA with a clear instruction that ‘go and stay for three or four months and then after that burn T-shirts’,” he said.

“It’s not a nice thing to do. They should wear the T-shirts, make them pyjamas, or clean with them at home. But they decided to burn them to display their dissatisfaction, it’s their prerogative.”

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On the party’s failure to fill the stadium during the celebrations, he said they were sabotaged.

“Mpumalanga and KwaZula-Natal supporters were not there. Some of the provinces didn’t bring the list of people they had envisaged because of the sabotage from bus owners,” he said.

“The second sabotage was by the marshals. Instead of marshalling people to be able to be fed, they were the ones grabbing food and caused chaos. When people heard there was food, they went outside.

“The chaos only started when the issue of hunger came in, but the event was successful. We paid everyone and we transported people back home.”

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21 00 people

Kunene said there were about 21 000 people, according to the joint operations committee.

“I am very happy with what the patriots have achieved. We were very brave and achieved what we wanted – which is to unite coloured and black people in Orlando Stadium,” he said.

He also played down the racism complaints from disgruntled members, saying every party has racist individuals in it.

“There is no racism in this party. I’m black, the president is coloured, so there’s no racism. You will have individuals who are racists,” Kunene said.

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“The president always condemns racism. We deal with those who we find are racist.

“Racism is not just whites against blacks, it is also blacks against whites, coloured against blacks, coloured against whites, and whites against coloureds. We hear racist statements sometimes being made by political leaders, so it’s not the nature of PA.”