POLITRICKING | 'We must understand the reality': PAC president on GNU, SA's new political landscape, and moving away from 'periphery'

JOHANNESBURG - "I am also worried with the utterances of Helen Zille, every day, but there is no Helen Zille in government," says Pan Africanist Congress’ (PAC) president Mzwanele Nyhontso.

He insists most of the tensions reported on the outside of the Government of National Unity (GNU), the African National Congress (ANC)-led coalition, are not experienced internally.

Nyhontso, this week’s guest on EWN’s Politricking with Tshidi Madia, said that everyone within government and the GNU Cabinet was working well together.

ALSO READ: 

• POLITRICKING | ‘We had to re-evaluate our position’: ActionSA’s Michael Beaumont talks Moonshot Pact ingenuity, ‘toxic’ DA and Tshwane
• POLITRICKING | EFF student command’s Sihle Lonzi talks ‘VBS Floyd’, elections, and vetting prospective fighters

His views come as the national coalition marks 100 days in office this week, but it’s also amid rising tensions between the two largest parties, the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA), over the former’s provincial structure in Gauteng’s handling of governance across some of the province’s metros.

Last week, the ANC in Tshwane, with the support of its provincial leadership and the aid of parties like ActionSA and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), ousted mayor Cilliers Brink, despite warnings and threats from the blue party.

The DA also suggested the GNU wasn’t safe due to those tensions, insisting it would field Brink as its mayoral candidate when the capital city’s council elects a new mayor in the coming days.

Nyhontso said he firmly believed the two parties would eventually sit down and find one another.

While he’s not as dynamic or present on social media, his excitement at finally being given a chance to serve in government is clear.

The PAC, with its one seat in Parliament, has scored itself a seat in Cabinet, with its president being appointed minister of rural development and land reform. This, he said, was the perfect marriage between the responsibilities given to him by the president and ideals which had been pioneered by the PAC during the struggle for liberation.

"I enjoy the fact that every day I talk about land, I enjoy the fact that every day I meet different stakeholders, traditional leaders, CPAs [communal property associations], land claimants… Everything I do and say is always about land," he said.

But the minister listed financial constraints, the CPAs, traditional leaders’ attitudes and the hurdles put in place by government for those seeking to take up farming as some of the challenges he’s experienced in recent months.

The minister also dismissed suggestions that his appointment was a farce and would not make any meaningful impact to those who were land-deprived in the country.

And while some have criticised Nyhontso for quickly ditching the so-called Progressive Caucus, consisting of the EFF, African Transformation Movement (ATM) and the uMkhonto weSizwe party in Parliament, he defended the move, saying it was a PAC national executive committee decision.

He also insisted that it was time that those who supported the former liberation movement to adapt to the new dispensation.

"It means we must stop criticising everything, saying everyone is a sellout except us. We must stop that… It means we must understand the reality, that there is a new government in South Africa, and we are part of this," he said.

"We must stop behaving as if tomorrow there’s an imaginary revolution or war that is going to happen somewhere and we don’t change… We behave as if we are somewhere between Limpopo and Zimbabwe and we [are] coming back home from exile."

He said that the PAC had a responsibility to be part of everything aimed at building the country, including street committees and police forums.

"Nothing about us, without us," as Sobukwe would say.

When asked about being labelled as an embarrassment or a sellout over the decision to join the GNU, Nyhontso said that those who held such views were enemies of the PAC.

"They are hurt, and they are angry, that the PAC, for the first time, is part of service delivery, for the first time, it’s going to service our people. They are hurt that the PAC is no longer staying in the periphery," said Nyhontso.

His faith in the party’s ability to continue, despite their continuous dismal showing at the polls, is unshakable, insisting it would miraculously grow its numbers at the 2026 local government polls.

Nyhontso also claimed that the PAC would use its involvement in the GNU to push for the proper commemoration of the Sharpville Massacre to take its rightful place on the country’s calendar.

As it stands, the day has since been declared "Human Rights Day" by the ANC government.