The Democratic Alliance (DA) has suspended Renaldo Gouws after confirming that a video of him using racial slurs was genuine.
Initially suspected to be a fake, the video has led to Gouws’s immediate suspension by the DA Federal Executive while he faces disciplinary charges before the Party’s Federal Legal Commission.
The DA investigated a video that appeared to show Gouws, who is a new Member of Parliament, using racial slurs and calling for the killing of black people.
In the video, shared by IOL, with explicit language censored, the man is heard saying:
“Alright, so there’s a couple of things I want to say, kill the f**king k***ers. Kill all the f***ing n***ers. That’s all I’ve got to say. Kill the f***ing k***ers, kill all the f***ing n***ers.”
DA federal council chairperson Helen Zille told News24 on Wednesday that she was informed about the video and spoke to Gouws.
“The initial report from him is that the video is fake, but we are doing our due diligence to authenticate the video,” she said.
“If the video is found to be true, it’s over for him. He will be removed as an MP. Such language is unjustifiable and unacceptable. I don’t see how such offensive language can be justified.”
On Tuesday, Gouws apologised on social media for a 2009 video in which he implied that white people were portrayed as the enemy and stated, “If Africa had to disappear off the face of the Earth, no one would f*** notice.”
He claimed that snippets of this video had been used against him.
“I posted a lengthy Facebook post from 2013 in which I apologised for how I delivered my message in my videos (angry, hostile, confrontational and crass),” he said.
“I refute any claims of racism or being a racist. I can, however, see how my message was distorted in the way it was delivered by me and I take full responsibility for the actions of my younger and immature self. For that, I apologise unreservedly,” he said.
