Apartheid past effectively disqualifies DA candidate from running for eThekwini mayoral position

22 July 2016

Skeletons linking the Democratic Alliance (DA) to the apartheid-era National Party are once again tumbling out of the closet. Hot on the heels of Penny Sparrow and Andre Slade comes a prominent DA office bearer touting his racist baggage with a deep sense of pride and satisfaction.

The DA's mayoral candidate for the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality Haniff Hoosen has just been exposed as a fulltime paid organiser for the National Party during the time Comrade Nelson Mandela and many other struggle heroes were imprisoned by the apartheid regime.

Hoosen was challenged and confirmed this historical fact during to come clean about his past as an apartheid collaborator during a live multi-party debate on Radio Al Ansaar on Sunday.

It has since emerged that DA members were not only paid a salary but they were also given company cars to enhance their convenience as offensive machinery dispatched to divide the Indian community.

The ANC calls on the DA to publicly apologise to the thousands of activists who were imprisoned, tortured and even murdered by the apartheid regime while DA members were on the payroll of the same regime. The DA should also apologise to the families who suffered untold grief and to those whose loved ones are still missing after being apprehended by the apartheid regime. 

We demand that all DA apartheid collaborators resign from public office to show remorse for their shameful past. With this kind of disgraceful conduct among its leaders, the DA strangely has the audacity to invoke Comrade Mandela’s name in this election campaign. 

President Mandela spent 67 loyal and active years as a member of the ANC and roundly condemned the DA for being the racists they remain to this day. The ANC is the true custodian of Madiba's legacy and non-racialism in South Africa. Racist collaborators like Hoosen should quietly take cover in the dustbins of history.

Issued by Mdumiseni Ntuli, ANC Provincial Spokesperson, 22 July 2016