Cape Town – Patriotic Alliance (PA) deputy president Kenny Kunene has dismissed allegations by Democratic Alliance (DA) federal council chair Helen Zille that the PA was created under the influence of former president Jacob Zuma.
Speaking during a press briefing on Wednesday, Zille claimed that Zuma had encouraged Kunene and PA leader Gayton McKenzie to form the party to divert coloured votes from the DA in the Western Cape in exchange for a lucrative business deal in Russia.
“Many of you will perhaps not recall that the PA was a project of Jacob Zuma’s ANC. They realised that they could not challenge the DA for power in the Western Cape,” she said.
“So, Jacob Zuma sent Kenny Kunene and Gayton McKenzie off to be the BEE partners for some big deal in Russia, and he also requested them to start a political party with the aim of taking coloured votes away from the DA, because the ANC has given up doing that.
“Many of you perhaps won’t recall that the PA was a project of Jacob Zuma’s ANC. They realised they couldn’t challenge the DA for power in the Western Cape, so Jacob Zuma sent Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene off to be the BEE partner of some big deal in Russia, and then also… pic.twitter.com/mihKEzlP9r
— News Live SA (@newslivesa) November 5, 2025
“The ANC does not mind if coloured voters go to the PA because the ANC knows that they will do a coalition with the PA afterwards, and so they might as well do it that way.
But according to The Citizen, Kunene refuted the claims, calling them “political gossip” and saying the PA was entirely his and McKenzie’s idea, not a Zuma-backed project.
He accused Zille of being “a political slay queen” driven by fear of losing the Western Cape to the PA in upcoming local elections. Kunene further accused the DA of trying to turn the Western Cape into a separate country serving “white monopoly capital.”
“When Zille and the DA have nothing to say, they gossip, like Malema, on other political parties.
“The PA was never a project of former president Zuma. It was always an idea of Kenny Kunene and Gayton McKenzie,” the report quoted Kunene as saying.
He added: “Zille is behaving like a desperate influencer; she is behaving like a political slay queen who is out of control.”
Zille, meanwhile, predicted that personality-driven parties like the EFF, MK, and PA would eventually collapse due to weak internal structures, unlike the DA, which she said is built on “constitutionalism and due process.”
The PA, founded in November 2013, recently announced former DA member Liam Jacobs as its Cape Town mayoral candidate, while the DA welcomed several ANC defectors, who said the DA was best positioned to lead the province.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
