Op-Ed: What Gayton McKenzie’s Controversies Reveal About South Africa’s Fragile GNU

In a role meant to unify through heritage, creativity, and national pride, McKenzie has instead become a symbol of something more complicated: the clash between controversy and delivery. His tenure has sparked heated debates about race, belonging, and leadership. But beneath the spectacle lies a deeper question: what does his rise say about South Africa’s fragile Government of National Unity (GNU), the coalition formed after the 2024 elections to keep the ruling ANC in power?

In October 2024, when McKenzie was four months into the job, OkayAfrica noted the early disconnect between his theatrics and the policy delivery expected of his office. At the time, it was too soon to doubt. Now, just over a year later, that gap has only widened, while the work of his ministry remains overshadowed by the minister himself.

When he was first appointed, there was genuine intrigue. A gangster-turned-businessman-turned-politician with a flair for the dramatic, McKenzie looked like someone who could shake up a ministry often dismissed as stagnant. But that intrigue has given way to fatigue. Today, the headlines are dominated not by his work but by his provocations.

Controversies that reveal deeper fault lines

One of the earliest shadows over his tenure was his rhetoric on immigration. Long before his ministerial role, McKenzie built political capital through populist language that became inherently xenophobic. Even after he was appointed minister, that tone did not entirely disappear. While immigration does not formally fall under his department, McKenzie’s repeated commentary on foreign nationals in South Africa has kept the controversy alive, raising doubts about his ability to foster inclusivity in a ministry tasked with celebrating cultural diversity.

In May 2025, during a meeting in his department, McKenzie ordered officials to fire foreign nationals in their departments, warning, “Get them out before I get you out.” This was after Civil society groups, including the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, condemned his comments as xenophobic and unconstitutional.

Earlier this month, McKenzie denounced the hosts of the Open Chats Podcast, who had made derogatory and racially offensive remarks about the Coloured community, spreading harmful stereotypes and even referencing incestuous behavior. In a video statement that multiple outlets later reported, he said: “I want a report today of how we are going to deal with those people who said Coloureds are crazy. I want us to use everything at our disposal.” He went further, vowing to “take them to the cleaners,” and insisting, “There is no room for racists, no matter the color. A racist remains a racist.”

But McKenzie’s forceful response triggered a backlash of its own. Within days, social media users began circulating screenshots of his own past tweets, some dating back to 2011, showing repeated use of the “K word,” a racial slur historically used in South Africa by the apartheid government to demean and dehumanize Black people, much like the “N word” was used in the U.S. against African Americans. The irony was not lost on South Africans. What began as a call for accountability quickly turned into a reckoning with McKenzie’s own digital history.

McKenzie as a reflection of the GNU

Veteran journalist and political commentator Makhosini Mgitywa, in an interview with OkayAfrica, gives his take on McKenzie’s handling of the Open Chats Podcast furore and his broader controversies.

“In his response, Gayton McKenzie was divisive, and it blew up in his face. Coloured people have legitimate concerns that would need to be addressed at some point, but also we must be mindful of the fact that there are people, even from the Coloured community, who would want to use those legitimate grievances to position themselves… I think Gayton McKenzie’s response to that podcast and what was said there was a bit over the top. I think it exploited the conflict, and unfortunately for him, it backfired.”

When asked if McKenzie’s woes could cost him, Mgitywa says the minister is hardly an outlier in South African politics; he’s surrounded by cabinet colleagues with scandals of their own. “Everybody in that cabinet has their own issues that they have to deal with, (Minister of Agriculture and leader of the Democratic Alliance) John Steenhuisen had that chief of staff who was problematic, the president has Phala Phala, the deputy president has his Lotto issues.”

Mgitywa argues that political focus on migrants serves as low-hanging fruit for political actors who are eager to redirect frustration from systematic failures. “There is a problem of unregulated immigration, there’s no doubt about it. I think sometimes it is exaggerated so that poor South Africans see illegal immigrants as a real problem for them, but in reality, these illegal immigrants don’t own land or means of production. They are just here, battling to make ends meet.”

The GNU was sold as a fresh start after years of paralysis, and the promise of a New Dawn. Instead, it is stacked with leaders who, like McKenzie, embody both reinvention and scandal. His tenure forces the public to wrestle with uncomfortable truths: Can a minister tasked with celebrating diversity openly disparage foreigners?

South Africans have seen this cycle before. Leaders promise change, then fall back on scapegoating, corruption, and performance in place of delivery. The GNU was meant to break that pattern. Instead, it risks deepening it by presenting compromise as stability.

Can unity survive the leaders we choose?

McKenzie’s rise is also a reminder that he is not just a minister by appointment; he is an elected official. That means there are South Africans who consciously chose him to represent them, despite or perhaps because of his past.

For Mgitywa, that fact says as much about the electorate as it does about McKenzie. “If we are serious about democracy, we have to acknowledge that he didn't put himself there. He was voted by people…despite that he was once jailed for crime, regardless of all of that, there were South Africans who went out and voted for the Patriotic Alliance.”

Can a government built on unity tolerate such divisive figures? Is the GNU beneficial to South Africans, or is it yet another way for politicians to hang on to power? And more urgently, if the GNU is to survive, will it hold its leaders accountable, or will it accept controversy as the cost of holding the center together?

For now, McKenzie stays in the seat. The GNU stays intact. But every controversy chips away at credibility. The reckoning isn’t just about one minister. It’s about whether South Africans still believe unity can deliver, or whether that, too, is becoming a performance.