Democratic Alliance (DA) release a statement on Friday wherein it confirmed that racist Renaldo Gouws has been kicked out of the party.
This after being found guilty of various charges of racism by the party’s Federal Legal Council this week.
Earlier this year Gouws was suspended as Member of Parliament a few days after being sworn in as a member of the National Assembly.
This after an outcry on social media whereby a petition was launched to persuade Speaker of Parliament Thoko Didiza to disqualify Gouws as an MP due to his racist rants.
At the time of his suspension, DA Federal Council chairperson Helen Zille said the following about the matter:
“DA is committed to non-racialism, we subscribe to the Constitution and belief that South Africa belongs to all people who live in it, united in diversity.”
Zille continued as follows:
“Denigrating, insulting and demeaning any category of people on the basis of identity and characteristics is completely unacceptable to the DA’s constitution.”
The statement released on Friday by party spokesperson Willie Aucamp reads as follows:
“The Democratic Alliance can confirm that the party’s Federal Executive has unanimously resolved to terminated Mr Renaldo Gouws’ membership and Mr Gouws has been formally informed of this decision and he therefore forfeits his Democratic Alliance seat in Parliament.”
The statement further reads as follows:
“This decision follows a thorough investigation conducted by the DA’s Federal Legal Commission (FLC) into allegations against Mr Gouws and the FLC found Mr Gouws guilty of contravening several sections of the DA’s constitution.”
In conclusion the statement emphasised that the DA remained committed to upholding its values of accountability, non-racialism and respect for all South Africans.
The charges and guilty verdict against Gouws stem from a video he posted on social media a couple of years ago, wherein he lambasted black people, referred to them in terms of the k… word and called for their mass killing.
At the time the racial accusations surfaced against him in June this year, Gouws had responded by saying he had been young and naive at that time he posted the video on social media and had since changed his attitude towards blacks, and that he made the derogatory remarks against black people way back during Jacob Zuma’s tenure as president of South Africa.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission had at the time the racism scandal against Gouws broke, promised to take him to the Equality Court.