Best of 2024: Ivo Vegter vs. Rob Hersov on Gayton McKenzie’s power plays
Earlier this year, BizNews published a fiery exchange between Ivo Vegter and Rob Hersov, sparked by Vegter's critique of Gayton McKenzie's political manoeuvres. Vegter painted McKenzie as a Machiavellian "kingmaker" whose power plays harm service delivery, while Hersov hit back, calling Vegter "Lazy Ivo" and defending McKenzie as a misunderstood reformer essential for South Africa's political future. This gripping debate delves into the complex realities of coalition politics, leadership ethics, and South Africa's evolving political landscape. Read their contrasting perspectives in this unmissable "read it again" feature.
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Ivo Vegter: Gayton McKenzie's political Machiavellianism, dark agenda of betrayal and power play
In a gripping political exposé, Ivo Vegter reveals a darker side to the enigmatic figure of Gayton McKenzie, leader of the Patriotic Alliance. He alleges that McKenzie, a reformed criminal, manipulates political landscapes, betraying alliances and wielding influence with a cold, self-serving agenda. Vegter says McKenzie's pursuit of power raises questions about his commitment to service delivery, his tactics drawing comparisons to gangster extortion, leaving municipalities in disarray. You can read Rob Hersov's right of reply by clicking here.
By Ivo Vegter*
Mackenzie says he's a reformed criminal, but his political tactics are nothing if not coldly self-serving.
The lofty promises of the leader of the Patriotic Alliance (PA), Gayton Mackenzie, have turned sour for many of his constituents and residents of the municipalities where PA councillors serve as 'kingmakers'.
Mackenzie revels in the power his little party has: to dictate whether the Democratic Alliance (DA) or the African National Congress (ANC) gets to run municipalities, even though it has only one or two council seats.
Mackenzie has an image as a strongman who gets things done, although he uses it to whip up xenophobia and a hardline response to crime. He may be anti-socialist, but he is no liberal. He is a hawkish conservative.
He has also been at the centre of several financial management controversies and has gained a reputation for being an untrustworthy coalition partner.
Insulted
In 2022, he felt personally insulted by a DA politician, and promised to 'teach the DA a lesson'.
That lesson would involve overthrowing DA-led coalitions and joining ANC-led coalitions wherever the PA could, notably in Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay, Knysna, and most recently, Plettenberg Bay (Bitou).
Turning coat has proved to be a profitable move for the PA, as it was rewarded for its betrayals with mayoral chains and other senior political or administrative positions, and, allegedly, tenders for cronies.
Despite its very small support base, amounting to only 0.8% of the national vote during the 2021 local government elections, the PA has now slunk its way into key positions in Beaufort West (mayor), Laingsburg (mayor), Prince Albert (deputy mayor), Central Karoo District Municipality (deputy mayor), Bitou (mayor), Theewaterskloof (mayor), Koukamma (mayor), Witzenberg (speaker), Johannesburg (not one but two seats on the mayoral committee), and Ekurhuleni (one mayoral committee seat).
The DA, for its part, openly refused to play this game of corruption, and refused to offer similar inducements of power or money to the PA.
Although the PA claims it is just an innocent party bent on delivering services to the people, where the PA did manage to wrench power away from the DA to hand to the ANC, service delivery has tanked.
Beaufort West had to be put under administration. Last weekend, the premier of the Western Cape, Alan Winde, said he was committed to pursuing full administration for Knysna, too, if the municipality rejected its third and final rescue offer.
Multi-Party Charter
The PA has repeatedly stated its desire to become a part of the multi-party opposition coalition once called the Moonshot Pact, and now known as the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa.
The DA has repeatedly stated that it has been betrayed too often to work with the PA.
On a local social media group in Plettenberg Bay, a post by Rob Hersov, the billionaire friend of Mackenzie's who has touted him as a potential post-2024 national president, demonstrates just how venally his party operates.
'It is very easy to save Plett and solve this problem', Hersov wrote. 'Get the PA to join the multi-party coalition like Corné Mulder and Herman Mashaba (and a number of top DA execs) have asked.'
He was taken to task for supporting what amounts to holding the town to ransom, demonstrating that the PA will do anything for a power grab, even if it is 'to cut off the nose to spite the face'.
The implication that the PA would use the same hardball tactics in pursuit of power at a national level perhaps suggests why, exactly, the DA won't play Mackenzie's game.
Hersov's video
Hersov made his feelings clear in a video he recorded (while driving): 'I'm actually quite happy to be kicked off the Protecting Plett group, because I just think, you know, there are too many people that are bored housewives, keyboard warriors or whatever, who just will never, ever, listen or see the truth for what it is. And the reality is that Gayton Mackenzie is anti-communist, pro-democracy, one of us. He wants to join the multi-party coalition, and he'd bring a huge amount of value.
'Corné Mulder [provincial leader of the Freedom Front Plus in the Western Cape], Inkatha [Freedom Party], and Herman Mashaba [leader of ActionSA] want him to join. But Helen Zille [chairperson of the Federal Council of the DA] and Leon Schreiber [DA shadow minister of public service and administration] don't, because they're threatened by him, they're trying to push him away because he threatens them in the Western Cape, so Gayton has correctly said: "Let me show you what I can do".'
Hersov continues: 'But it's a grave mistake. Zille and Schreiber are fundamentally wrong. And the people of Plett, most of them anyway, are… there are none so blind as those who will not see.
'Now I don't really care. I'm trying to save the country. I'm trying to get the multi-party coalition elected, but I think without the PA it's going to be very, very hard. And with closed-minded people like the people on the Plett group – not all of them, but you know who I'm talking about – I just think South Africa's got a problem. It's not going to happen and we're going to end up with the ANC, the EFF and Zuma for the next four or five years.'
Hersov's contempt for the people of Plettenberg Bay, who are naturally concerned that the same fate that befell Knysna will now befall them, is palpable. His platitudes about Mackenzie's supposed support for democracy ring hollow.
Gangster extortion
Much more concerning, however, is the cold Machiavellian calculation of Mackenzie, who is willing to sacrifice service delivery to fulfil his personal political ambitions.
The consequences are dire, as I wrote in my recent column on Knysna, where seven new senior staff positions were created for cronies as soon as the PA overturned the DA-led council. Sewage runs in the streets, endangering a very sensitive estuarine ecosystem; refuse piles up in the centre of town, causing a massive stink and rat infestation; and large numbers of people – Mackenzie's own coloured constituency among them – have to live without water for weeks at a time, leading to a sharp rise in waterborne diseases, grave discomfort, and potentially deaths.
Mackenzie is willing to trample all over the people in the towns where he struts about as 'kingmaker'. He is willing to adopt a scorched-Earth policy and hold the people hostage with his naked pursuit of power.
It is pure gangster extortion, which more than justifies the accusation of 'political thuggery' leveled against him originally, that sparked his vendetta against the DA.
Hersov is right that the multi-party coalition needs all the help and votes it can get. He is wrong to lionise Mackenzie, however, or to believe that Mackenzie will 'bring a huge amount of value'.
Mackenzie wants to be taken seriously and to be considered respectable, but his actions are those of a gangster who will happily sell out his own people for a seat at the table.
*Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist, columnist and speaker who loves debunking myths and misconceptions, and addresses topics from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets.
This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission
Rob Hersov: My right of reply to 'Lazy Ivo' Vegter, DA stooge
By Rob Hersov*
When Ivo Vegter decided to do a hit piece on Gayton McKenzie and the Patriotic Alliance, the least he could have bothered to do was to get his facts straight. He does strike me as another Plett "keyboard warrior" who shoots from the hip and is too lazy to do proper research.
Firstly, he can't even spell McKenzie's name correctly (he spelt it Mackenzie – fixed on BizNews), and that is just the start of my issues with his diatribe.
Relying on a News24 article that News24 was forced to apologise for by the media ombudsman (a fact Vegter either doesn't know or chose to ignore), lazy Ivo claims McKenzie was at the "centre of several financial management controversies" – when really all we're talking about is discredited reportage from an obviously biased media outlet (Adrian Basson is Koos Bekker's nodding dog and a true ANC apologist). Not one single substantive finding of financial mismanagement has ever emerged against McKenzie or the PA, to my knowledge (I have done the research, dear lazy Ivo).
Why Vegter chose to misrepresent the PA's national vote tally from 2021 as 0.8%, instead of the 0.96% it actually was is a strange little mystery, but things don't improve for him from there……………
1. The PA does not have the deputy mayorship of Prince Albert. That municipality is controlled by the DA.
2. The PA does not have the mayorship of Bitou.
3. The PA not only doesn't have the mayorship of Koukamma, but it is also not even in government there and is in opposition to the ruling ANC.
4. And, finally, the PA is not part of the ANC-EFF government of Ekurhuleni and certainly does not have an MMC there.
The above are matters of fact that could have been easily verified, but Vegter decided his thumb was a better source of his information. "Lazy Ivo" is a moniker I think should stick.
The PA has already removed two ANC councillors from wards since 2021. They contested those wards in Kimberley and in Johannesburg and replaced the ANC. A party that is the lapdog of the ANC could not possibly do that.
Vegter writes that, because of the PA, Beaufort West had to be put under administration. Still, the PA walked into the administration in Beaufort West to find a municipality that had already run out of money before it got there. It was never under full administration but under a financial recovery plan. The municipality's financial recovery plan was run under the PA's mayor.
You may think what you like about all this, but at least Lazy Ivo should get his facts right.
Vegter writes very sympathetically about the DA's feeling of "betrayal" by the PA, but I've tried repeatedly to understand why the DA feels so strongly that the PA "betrayed" them. Only with the single instance of the PA turning against the DA coalition in Johannesburg can an argument be made that the PA went against the coalition agreement – but even then, their reasons are very clear, and ActionSA and the Freedom Front Plus have publicly agreed that they understood the PA's rationale at the time. Ask Herman Mashaba and Michael Beaumont or ask Dr. Corne Mulder.
The PA has offered to rejoin a non-ANC coalition in Johannesburg on another four occasions, each time with the DA rejecting them and consigning the residents of South Africa's most important metro to governance by the EFF and ANC. The DA owes South Africans more and should, at the very least, have tried to find a deal. But they have no interest in saving Johannesburg, and instead, they blame the PA for anything and everything (message the pathetic Leon Schreiber and all you get is "PA is ANC"). The DA believes this may help it keep the PA at bay in the Western Cape but I don't believe it will. It should be willing to do a deal; this is all I've been saying for over a year now.
When Lazy Ivo gets to writing about Knysna, his facts don't get any better. He writes about "seven new senior staff positions created for cronies" but fails to mention that the DA recently lost the case against those appointments, which were found to be legal. The problems in the Knysna council are also not the kinds of things that started the moment the DA left, but I agree that it is in a dire state. To blame the PA for all the problems would be missing the point.
I don't believe Gayton is extorting the DA. The DA is quite simply, stubbornly and childishly, refusing to mature and share power with other parties in coalitions. They want to govern coalitions as though they are the only party in power. The PA takes exception to that, and they should. Until that attitude changes (and it must) the country will not advance as a coalition-driven multi-party state. And it is very, very clear to anyone who keeps an open mind (a rare few in Plett) that the DA is rapidly losing the "brown vote" and will lose the Western Cape as a result.
To blame Gayton for putting the interests of his party above the DA's interests (and to then make that sound as though he is in effect putting his own interests above the interests of citizens) is nothing but naked campaigning for the DA by Lazy Ivo and he should rather declare himself as a DA stooge in his byline before attempting to sell his drivel as "opinion" or "analysis".
Of course Gayton will prioritise the PA over the DA. He's the president of the PA. The DA should stop taking that so personally.
*Rob Hersov, a global entrepreneur who has played a disruptive role in SA politics, has been vocal in his support for the Patriotic Alliance and its president, Gayton McKenzie. Hersov is a keynote speaker at BNC#7.
A final response from Vegter
I apologise for misspelling McKenzie's name. That was careless of me. I also apologise for misreading a table and attributing the next minnow's share of the vote to the PA. It should indeed be 0.97%.
Both errors have been corrected, and neither changes the substance of my argument.
The list of positions the PA obtained came from a list he himself provided after the elections in 2021:
I should point out that I am from Knysna, and not Plett. See? Minor errors befall us all, Mr Hersov.
If he had followed the link to my article about Knysna, he also would have read my opinion that, "Frankly, no party has served the town particularly well in the last 15 years," and, "I'm under no illusion that a DA-led council will be a panacea."
That hardly paints me as a stooge for the DA, now does it?
The better question is why Mr Hersov is such a stooge for the PA.
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