Poo protester Loyiso Nkohla has dumped the African National Congress for the Democratic Alliance.
The co-founder of the Ses’khona People’s Rights Movement and 400 former ANC members crossed over to their arch-rivals in Khayelitsha yesterday.
Rumours about Nkohla defecting to the DA were rife after Ses’khona’s announced they were cutting ties with the ANC two weeks ago over unhappiness with the party’s election ward candidates list.
Yesterday, the disgruntled members swapped their yellow ANC T-shirts for the bright blue of the DA.
Ses’khona caused groot k** for the DA-led City of Cape Town in 2013, when it protested against poor service delivery by flinging poo at the Western Cape legislature and the Cape Town International Airport.
Nkohla, and Seskhona co-founder Andile Lili were among those arrested.
Yesterday, DA provincial leader Patricia de Lille welcomed the new members with Struggle songs.
A smiling Nkohla said: “It is comforting to see we still sing the same old songs here, it means we are not lost, comrades.”
De Lille was adamant Nkohla was “not promised anything” to join the party.
In fact, the poo fighter will not become a DA card carrying member until his criminal cases are resolved.
Thanking Nkohla for endorsing the DA, the mayor said: “We know he fought and still fights for better sanitation, it’s because you fought for these rights that everyone has access to them.”
Nkohla said the decision to join the DA was not out of spite.
“We want to apologise to the people of Cape Town, to you mayor, because whatever we did was because the ANC told us to. The ANC played with our time and lied to us. People keep saying we are defecting to the ANC, we are not, this is a mass exodus,” he says.
ANC spokesperson Jabu Mfusi called the defection “electioneering propaganda”.
“They are selling their souls to the DA,” he said.
“Loyiso is bored and couldn’t stay in the ANC because he did not get what he wanted. He loves money and thinks he is more important than the ANC.”
An upset Lili added: “The move by Loyiso came as a shock. As we said two weeks ago, we will not associate with any political party, even though the majority of the members of Ses’khona are ANC members.
“Ses’khona is an NGO and cannot be associated with the Devil Alliance which has the poor people of the Cape oppressed.”
The DA and ANC have been swopping members for weeks.
Yesterday DA leaders stated about 1 000 ANC members have joined their party in the past month.
The ANC did not provide numbers.