By: Staff Reporter
After the Daily Maverick published an article on Tuesday choosing to characterize the Patriotic Alliance (PA) and its leaders as gangsters and criminals, many on social media responded with scorn.
The article by Caryn Dolley collected numerous allegations made against the PA over the years, including that it was started by gangsters in 2013 on the Cape Flats – an unsubstantiated theory first proposed by former Western Cape police boss Major-General Jeremy Vearey, who has since been fired from the police.
The article also spoke about PA deputy president Kenny Kunene’s sushi party of 2010.
PA president Gayton McKenzie responded to the article on Twitter by calling the Daily Maverick’s writers “hired pens”. He has warned his party’s members to be prepared for more media attacks in the months ahead as the country heads into the local government elections.
McKenzie has often spoken publicly about how any initiative with its roots in and spearheaded by coloured communities often has to deal with the blatant racism of those who dismiss this as the work of “gangsters”.
The PA has always rejected the “gangster party” label and has repeatedly said its involvement in and communication with communities in which gangsters operate is an unavoidable feature of working to bring peace to violence-ridden neighbourhoods that the state – whether under the ANC or the DA – has written off.
“You can’t get the gangs to agree to stop killing each other if you don’t talk to them,” McKenzie has said.
The Democratic Alliance has seen an erosion of support in many areas in Gauteng previously considered its strongholds as voters have rallied behind the PA. If this trend were to continue in the Western Cape, the DA may risk losing Cape Town in this election and the Western Cape province in the next.
McKenzie reiterated this point in his Twitter response on Tuesday.
“You can call me a gangster all you like but Cape Town will be taken from the DA, I say this with conviction again. You guys are hired pens. Salute.”
You can call me a gangster all you like but Cape Town will be taken from the DA, I say this with conviction again. You guys are hired pens. Salute https://t.co/oEscgqNM3b
— Gayton McKenzie (@GaytonMcK) August 31, 2021
Others on Twitter pointed out that McKenzie was taking flak from the liberal media due to his tough stance on illegal immigrants.
Take a look at some of the many responses below:
I've made mistakes in past, I've learned and paid for them in full. Judge me on where I'm going 🚀
— Siphiwe Magubane (@siphiwemags) August 31, 2021
Good get ‘em Gayton
— Lower Working Class MomDad (@Lephutshe) August 31, 2021
They are feeling the pressure. ✊🏿
— Gringoe Thandile Mashalaba, uMntungwa 🐘. (@gmashala) August 31, 2021
This is the price you have to shoulder for wanting to put South Africans first.
— Kgomotso "Ichiban the banished Yakuza" Maepa (@mozy84) August 31, 2021
That's their modus operandi
— Former Kleva Black🇿🇦 🇿🇦 (@SneKhumaloSA) August 31, 2021
Indeed, DA can kiss Cape Town goodbye!
— join BLF Now!! (@BLFmembers) August 31, 2021
Hulle blaas wind Pres. Gayton. As mense bang raak maak hulle stupid geraas. #OnsHuiwerNie #OnsBaizaNie 🙏🏽✊🏽✅💚💚💚💚💚💚
— Virginia Keppler (@VKeppler) August 31, 2021
Salute! We as the residents of the Western Cape can't wait to see the DA out of power in this province.
— Bulelani Ndindwa (@Bulela_Ndindwa) August 31, 2021
Salute president, They're rented we see them.
— Norman Ngobeni (@Kadaffi15) August 31, 2021
If PA can devide the Coloured vote @WesternCapeDA will be gone.then the poppe will dance
— Raymond (@Raymond59591639) August 31, 2021
Unethical journalists
— Osiile zama Mmuhela (@OsiileM) August 31, 2021
This is not about illegal foreigners anymore , Gayton is giving DA chest pains. Daily Maverick paid !
— G (@mvelo_2) August 31, 2021
Since you want to change the politics of Cape Town they will come for you with all they have, your dream of breaking their evil monopoly must be truncated at all costs!
— Steema (@Steema7) August 31, 2021
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 the irony of saying it "with conviction". I just support your #PutSouthAfricaFirst drive, that's all.
— thepowerrace_1🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦 (@1Thepowerrace) August 31, 2021
Gayton, don't take this daily Maverick newsletter serious. They have very few readers. The real voters don't care about them
— God Delivers (@mogaumabapa) August 31, 2021
Don’t tell me #ThumaMinaMediaGroup has been summoned to deal with PA. They mustn’t arrest you Grootman, they are very big on that lately. They will keep recycling same tired stories about you month after month to pic.twitter.com/PXILPoyqak
— Ntsubasa🇿🇦 (@NguSinga) August 31, 2021
Their time is up, they can go back to the past but we know the truth; you paid for your mistakes and now you changing lives! Take Cape Town and rule the people and let all illegal immigrants go back home! Power to the people
— AlphaMale-KHUMALO (@9944PROF) August 31, 2021
Daily Maverick is a hired gun that promote the new dictator in Africa called Ramaphosa. We don't take them serious. None of them have done half of the things you have done for our communities. They must f#ck off.
— Ntsako Shivambu (@ntsakosnr0) August 31, 2021
The daily Maverick is a hired gun for Cyril. The journalist are all in the same whatsapp group for CR17 and serving there slave bosses. Daily Maverick has lost its credibility it’s a captured newspaper just like there editors and journalists.
In 2 elections I voted for the DA Mr Gayton mckenzie, but when they started to target Auntie Pat with all kinds of corrupt alligations and they couldn’t prove it and lost in court 4 times against Auntie Pat, I realized there and than I will never ever vote DA again.
The DA is a party not for black and coloured people, but for rich and white middle class conservatives.
https://africanewsglobal.com/you-can-call-me-a-gangster-all-you-like-but-cape-town-will-be-taken-from-the-da-gayton-mckenzie/#comment-22
In 2 elections I voted for the DA Mr Gayton mckenzie a mistake I will never do again, because when they started to target Auntie Pat with all kinds of corrupt alligations and they couldn’t prove it and lost in court 4 times against Auntie Pat, I realized there and than I will never ever vote DA again.
The DA is a party not for black and coloured people, but for rich and white middle class conservatives.
The problem with that is that our people is so blind to see that the DA is not for us, they pretend to be and occasionally but a black or coloured person in a position of power to so us that they are for us, but in the mean time they control the out come.
Clear example the puppet they Appointmented as mayor after they manage to get rid of Auntie Pat.
We need to make the Western Cape green so that they can get green of jealousy. Ons Baiza nie💚💚
Its sad to see the minority DA whites controlling everything in the province while the majority coloreds are swimming in poverty
They talk about gangsters but our government is full of gangsters one thing is sure the government don’t want competition 🙄.