Cape Town -
Former Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie has signed up as a member of the just-launched party, the Patriotic Alliance, says its president and ex-convict Gayton McKenzie.
McKenzie, who heads the party with fellow ex-convict Kenny Kunene, said he went to Staggie’s home in Salt River on Sunday where Staggie signed a membership form.
Staggie, who a decade ago was convicted of kidnapping and ordering the gang-rape of a Manenberg woman, was released on parole in September and was at home on Sunday as part of these conditions.
Another planned political party, the Progressive Alliance, headed by gangster-turned-pastor Ivan Waldeck and formed as a result of an apparent dispute between Waldeck and McKenzie, was keen to have had Staggie on board as a member.
But Staggie chose the Patriotic Alliance over Waldeck, his employer. McKenzie backed Staggie as a member of his party, which he said focused on “the coloured vote in the Western Cape”.
“For me, Rashied Staggie is a leader. There are many people he can save. I’ve been personally responsible for Rashied since he’s been out of jail. I’ve been talking to him… I’ve been learning from him,” McKenzie said.
He named another former gang leader as being a member of the party, but the Cape Times was unable to reach the person for comment. McKenzie brushed off the fact the party was linked to gangsters.
“They can call me a gangster. They can call us the gangster party. But they’ll see me at the polls,” he said.
The Patriotic Alliance was officially launched in Paarl at the weekend. Kunene, previously aligned to Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, is the party’s secretary general. McKenzie told the Cape Times the party had 339 000 members nationally.
Its policies included:
* Focusing on fishermen and removing “all the big companies from the water” thereby making these companies rely on local fishermen to get fish and seafood.
* Scrapping the current form of Black Economic Empowerment and creating an empowerment fund that would cater to previously disadvantaged residents for 20 years.
McKenzie said he and fellow party leaders had been working on it for months going into various communities around the province to campaign and garner support.
Often associated with Johannesburg, McKenzie said his links to the Western Cape included that his children went to school in the province and he had houses registered here.
McKenzie said the party planned to at a later stage gain “allies” in black and white residents. When it came to Waldeck, who accused McKenzie and Kunene of making empty promises, McKenzie said he had no ill feelings.
“He’s a man of God. Pastor Ivan, he’s not an enemy for me. An enemy is poverty,” McKenzie said.
In May, Waldeck was shot 10 times in Bellville South about 10 weeks after his friend Albern Martins, also a gangster-turned-pastor, was murdered in Bishop Lavis.
Waldeck told the Cape Times that Staggie had set up a meeting between McKenzie, Kunene and Waldeck so that Waldeck could help the duo familiarise themselves with the Western Cape. Waldeck said he was a founding member of the Patriotic Alliance.
McKenzie denied all of this.
Waldeck said after attending three Patriotic Alliance meetings, he became disillusioned with McKenzie and Kunene.
“I said, you can’t promise people stuff and break your word,” Waldeck said.
He had therefore decided to form his own party, the Progressive Party, which he was in the process of trying to register. The party would focus on prisoners, gangsters and communities where gangsterism was rife.
Cape Times