FOUR house Republicans wrote a letter to Donald Trump last week, claiming the United States had been marginalised under the ANC and calling South Africa an “ethno-nationalist gangster state” . While the claim by Andrew Ogles, Joe Wilson, Tom Tiffany and Don Bacon of marginalization of US interests may be true, (given Pretoria’s obsession with BRICS to the detriment of the African Union), the strange assertion that far from beings a non-racial democracy our country is rather some form of criminal enterprise, one based upon a narrow ethnic nationalism, is demonstrably untrue.
Thus the budget was postponed after pressure from the ruling party’s coalition partners. This is because the last election delivered a resounding victory for multi-party democracy and plural government when it delivered a coalition under the Government of National Unity (GNU). The coalition comprises a range of ethnic groups, and includes the Democratic Alliance, a political formation that represents a majority of the so-called ‘white electorate”.
Not only is Afrikaner leader of the DA, John Steenhuisen a cabinet minister, but his party fields no less than 12 Cabinet and Deputy Ministers. We list them below:
DA Cabinet Ministers:
- Minister of Agriculture – John Steenhuisen
- Minister of Basic Education – Siviwe Gwarube
- Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure – Dean Macpherson
- Minister of Home Affairs – Dr Leon Schreiber
- Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment – Dr Dion George
- Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies – Solly Malatsi
DA Deputy Ministers:
- Deputy Minister of Finance – Ashor Sarupen
- Deputy Minister of Energy and Electricity – Samantha Graham-Maré
- Deputy Minister of Small Business Development – Jane Sithole
- Deputy Minister of Higher Education – Dr Mimmy Gondwe
- Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition – Andrew Whitfield
- Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation – Sello Seitlholo
The defamatory assertions by the Republican congressmen are thus a blatant falsehood, since all 12 MPs gained their posts via a democratic process which was labeled ‘free and fair’ and whose observers, included the United States,
US participation as electoral observers alongside the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa has occurred every election since 1994, when the first democratic government was elected under the late Nelson Mandela, an ardent democrat.