President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Gayton McKenzie, leader of the National Alliance, to head the multi-party government portfolio after the ANC lost its parliamentary majority in the May 29, 2024 elections. BBC.
But let's not jump too far ahead. Let our story begin when Mackenzie robbed a bank at the age of 15. He spent seven years in prison for the crime, vowing that he would change upon his release.
“I may have had 12 rand (about 250 Hungarian forints) in my pocket, but I dreamed of billions. That’s what people don’t understand. They focus on what they lack instead of thinking about how to get it,” he said in a previous interview.
Gayton McKenzie later became a motivational speaker, published books about his life and ventured into various ventures – from mining in Zimbabwe to nightclubs in South Africa – with Kenny Kunene, whom he met while in prison.
He is like them and he puts up with it.
Today, Mackenzie is best known as a politician, and in 2013 he founded the National Alliance Party. More than a decade later, the party has garnered 2% of the national vote. Its campaign slogan is “We do not sell It was, which loosely means: “We are not afraid.”
“McKenzie has become so popular because people want to trust someone like them who will do that,” political analyst Kagiso Poe told the BBC. “President Zuma, President Trump and other figures are doing the same thing,” he said.
Until last year, Mackenzie was mayor of Central Caro, and was once accused of failing to account for 3 million random payments, worth more than 56 million Hungarian forints. According to local media, a court ordered him to hand over some financial documents to investigators last month, just weeks before he was promoted to the cabinet.
Mackenzie then wrote in a post on X that he would do it soon and the truth would come out. “I have nothing to hide. Lies have short legs.”
