Knives out for Gayton McKenzie

Several political parties have called on Minister of Sports, Arts, and Culture, and leader of the Patriotic Alliance (PA), Gayton McKenzie, to step down from his position in Cabinet.

This is for several racist remarks made on social media several years ago that have recently resurfaced.

The Democratic Alliance (DA), Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the uMkhonto WeSizwe (MK) Party, ActionSA, and the African Transformation Movement (ATM) have all either reported the Minister’s comments or demanded he step down from his position.

The calls follow McKenzie’s party taking legal action against the Open Chats Podcast for discriminatory remarks about the Coloured community.

However, following the noise made by McKenzie and members of the PA on social media about these remarks, many pointed to the Minister’s use of the K-word slur on X (formerly Twitter) some years ago.

The DA said that “in past circumstances, the use of the K-word has had serious sanctions in South Africa, including dismissal, and we expect that will be the natural consequence here too.”

This probably referred to their former MP, Renaldo Gouws, who was dismissed after a video emerged showing him using the K-word as a provocative tactic to highlight what he viewed as double standards against white South Africans. 

The EFF called for McKenzie’s removal from the President’s Cabinet, after the “resurfacing of a long history of hateful, racist, and dehumanising remarks he has made about black people.”

It added that McKenzie’s comments “come just a week after he demanded accountability from others when he himself harbours the same hateful attitudes.”

Similarly, ActionSA reported McKenzie’s remarks to the South African Human Rights Commission, with Alan Beasley, one of the party’s Members of Parliament (MP), saying it will follow the Commission’s prescribed process.

“He repeatedly used hateful slurs from the Apartheid era, along with other offensive references that served to degrade and dehumanise black South Africans,” ActionSA said in a statement.

ATM’s Parliamentary leader, Vuyo Zungula, lodged a complaint against McKenzie with the Presidency, Parliament, and the Joint Committee on Ethics on Saturday, calling for an urgent investigation into his remarks.

However, Parliament’s spokesperson, Molotho Mothapo, has said he will not be probed because McKenzie’s comments were made before becoming an MP.

Several critics have also, including the EFF, pointed to the removal of former DA MP Renaldo Gouws from Parliament earlier this year for racist remarks made in an old video as having set a precedent for how the situation should be handled.

Following the onslaught of parties publicly accusing the Minister of blatant racism, McKenzie said that he “could never be guilty of racism” but was guilty of posting “insensitive, stupid, and hurtful things a decade or two ago.”

“You have now gone 13 years back and can’t bring out one racist thing I ever said. I always and still fight that coloureds and blacks are one people being treated differently mistakenly,” he said in an earlier post.

“I was a troll & stupid. I cringe when seeing them and I am truly sorry for that. I shall subject myself to the investigation.”

Where it started

McKenzie’s derogatory social media posts, some of which are over a decade old, have only recently come to light because of his reaction to comments made by Open Chats Podcast hosts Mthokozisi Methula and Sinothanda Kama.

In an episode that aired on 21 July 2025, Methula and Kama referred to the Coloured community as “mentally crazy” and that “Coloured siblings chow (have sex with) each other.”

After the comments caught McKenzie’s attention, he took to social media to announce that his party would be exhausting all its legal resources to determine what action could be taken against the hosts.

In a letter of demand posted to X (formerly Twitter), the party’s legal team states that the hosts’ comments “constitute hate speech” and “unlawfully impair the dignity of a protected group.”

McKenzie also escalated the matter to MultiChoice, which he said displayed the podcast’s content on its platforms. As a result, McKenzie said MultiChoice had decided not to renew its contract with the show.

Several political parties issued statements expressing their disapproval of the comments, with the DA reporting the content creators to the SAHRC.

The Open Chats Podcast issued a formal apology, acknowledging the “hurt caused by the clip that continues to circulate online,” and that the “intention was never to cause harm or disrespect the Coloured community.”

Despite the statement, the SAHRC’s chairperson, Chris Nissen, rejected the content creators’ apology and said that it would be launching an investigation into the comments.

“They’ve apologised, but we said no, you cannot do hate speech and racist comments and then apologise afterwards as if nothing happened,” he said.

“They must appear before the Commission, and the Commission as such is preparing the internal investigation together with the complaints that are there.”