Former African National Congress (ANC) MP Vytjie Mentor has joined Herman Mashaba’s new political party which is set to be launched in August.
Mashaba, who is the former Johannesburg Mayor, made the announcement via social media on Thursday, referring to Mentor as a “state-capture whistleblower.”
He said, “Vytjie brings a great deal of experience and knowledge to our new political party, and in our discussions she has expressed her dedication to being involved with us as the only party capable of unseating the ANC.
“Nobody knows better how important this task is for our country and I look forward to working with her in growing our new party.”
Mashaba also shared a video in which Mentor expressed her excitement at joining the yet-to-be-named party, which she described as “the last chance to save South Africa.”
“This is the last initiative that is able to bring people together from across the board to save our country just in the nick of time because everything is going haywire. I’m so glad we are doing this,” she said.
No free leadership positions
Mashaba nevertheless made it clear in subsequent Twitter posts that everyone joining the new party will have to be elected to leadership positions.
“I want to remind South Africans: nobody will be given leadership positions in our new party, not even myself. Our commitment to electoral reform means that any person who wants to represent our party during elections will need to be voted in by their community before elections,” he wrote.
Mentor has been a strident critic of the ANC since leaving it. She once served as chairperson of Parliament’s portfolio committee on public enterprises.
She testified at the state capture commission of inquiry in 2018 and made several claims, including allegedly meeting the Gupta brothers in 2010 at their Saxonwold home in Johannesburg where former President Jacob Zuma was allegedly present.
However, independent investigations by the inquiry, including scrutiny of her flight records and those of Atul Gupta, cast doubt on several claims in her testimony.
This isn’t the first party Mentor has joined since leaving the ANC. In March last year, she joined the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP).