Zimpapers Logo

Johannesburg — The office of the ANC chief whip wants DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard fired from Parliament following a post she shared on Facebook praising PW Botha. “The Office of the ANC chief whip in Parliament is outraged, but not surprised, by yet another DA public representative’s shameless racism and nostalgic endorsement of the apartheid era rule,” spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said in a statement.

“It’s in this vein that Kohler-Barnard’s racist conduct, although outrageous and utterly repulsive, does not surprise us as racism and white supremacy form the core DNA of the DA,” he added. Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane earlier yesterday said the party would take disciplinary action against Kohler Barnard for the Facebook post.

“We don’t support any views which welcome PW Botha, we certainly don’t associate ourselves with a perpetrator of evil against South Africans,” he said. Kohler Barnard said she shared a post on Facebook two weeks ago about KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss Johan Booysen but said she failed to notice that in the middle of the post it said: “Please, come back PW Botha – you were far more honest than any of these ANC rogues, and you provided a far better service to the public…”

The outspoken DA MP said she was alerted to it by her KwaZulu-Natal leader and deleted the post immediately and apologised. The screen grab of the post resurfaced on Twitter yesterday morning. She said she had apologised on Twitter and would continue to apologise for sharing the post.

Mothapo said if the DA was serious about ridding itself of its “public reputation as a refuge for racists and white supremacists still longing for the return of apartheid rule” it would fire Kohler Barnard from Parliament. — AFP