If you’ve recently had the misfortune of glancing through the website formerly known as Twitter (now X), you’d know that Gayton McKenzie, the newly appointed South African Minister of sport, arts, and culture, completed the Mandela Day Walk and Run on July 20 (held annually on or around Nelson Mandela’s birthday on July 18). Normally, the exercise habits of a public official would be considered irrelevant given the more serious problems facing a country. But not for the leader of the Patriotic Alliance (PA). McKenzie has used his recent fitness kick as a symbol for his quest to shed the excesses of a department that has faced criticism for wasteful expenditure in the past. “I promise…to run every day. You cannot have an overweight minister of sports, arts, and culture. I must look like my job,” he tweeted, after being sworn into the Government of National Unity (GNU) cabinet on July 3. In a country where the weight of politicians has been mercilessly conflated with laziness or ineptitude, McKenzie let South Africans know that while he meant business, he was prepared to laugh at himself too. 

In fact, McKenzie has been adept at playing the role of the lovable buffoon in his first month in charge of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport (DCAS). As a result, he joins the ranks of previously beloved clowns like Secretary-General of the African National Congress (ANC) Fikile Mbalula, ex-Police Minister Bheki Cele, and even former President Jacob Zuma—all of whom once disarmed South Africans with a playfulness that papered over their incompetence and in Zuma’s case, pathological corruption. Despite having conducted the most openly xenophobic national election campaign in South Africa’s democracy, McKenzie’s pursuit of a “summer body” has turned him into social media’s goofy, fun-loving uncle. Initially, McKenzie’s critics were concerned that he’d be granted his wish of serving as minister of home affairs, placing the lives of African foreign nationals at risk. 

Now placed in a department that has long been treated as an afterthought, South Africans have been lulled into complacency, dropping their guard against a man who has contributed to the uptick of right-wing populism in the country. Six days after his appointment to the GNU cabinet, McKenzie vowed to put a halt to free trips for “superfans,” a select group of South African spectators who travel locally and internationally with the largest national sports teams. Earlier in February, the ultra-conservative interest group AfriForum revealed that the DCAS had spent R1.3 million (about $71,000) on the travel and accommodation costs of superfans “Mama Joy” Chauke and Botha Msila during the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France. 

Consequently, McKenzie’s decision was largely applauded by South Africans, who welcomed his plans to tackle corruption and maladministration within his portfolio. A day later, the DCAS published the lists of artists who’d received money from the COVID-19 relief package—a move that was eagerly awaited when McKenzie made the announcement two days prior. The document contained a number of well-known names like Podcast and Chill host MacG, so-called musician and Democratic Alliance (DA) apologist the Kiffness, veteran singer Abigail Kubeka, the renowned Drakensberg Boys Choir, and kwaito pioneer Arthur Mafokate and his son Arthur Mafokate Jr., among others. 

McKenzie may be new to the national government, but he’s already schooled in the art of making a spectacle out of hollow pronouncements. Since his entry into politics in 2013, he has used social media to broadcast—sometimes even spitball—his thoughts to anyone willing to pay him a lick of attention. This was evident when he was elected mayor of the Central Karoo district in April 2022. McKenzie declared that he would donate all his salary to charity, hire private security guards, decline a state vehicle, and serve only a year in his post. That August, the South African Communist Party (SACP) disputed these claims in a letter to the Public Protector, accusing McKenzie of having “misled the public” about his lack of a salary. In response to these allegations, McKenzie posted an alleged copy of his payslips and records on X. Following his resignation in May 2023, the Western Cape High Court instructed McKenzie to submit financial statements relating to R3 million ($164,000) that he purported to have fundraised for service delivery projects in the Karoo. Until this day, the district has reportedly not seen any of the funds. 

However, none of the scandals fazed McKenzie, who had already set his eyes on the national elections. Mobilizing his supporters through slogans like “Abahambe” (“They must go”), he swore that he’d deport undocumented African immigrants en masse, and even staged a so-called patrol of the Beitbridge border between the Limpopo River and Zimbabwe. McKenzie boasted that his party members, who donned military fatigues, prevented 1,000 foreign nationals from entering the country. In spite of the concerns about his xenophobia from human rights groups, the PA won enough votes to secure McKenzie a place in a coalition government—the second of its kind in South Africa. 

While he may not have received the ministry of his choice, McKenzie has already infected it with his brand of divisiveness, triggering antagonism and suspicion within three sectors that have long had their own struggles. The publication of the COVID-19 relief fund lists pitted artists against one another and the public in an industry that has been chronically underfunded. The superfans announcement did nothing but bring intense scrutiny of Chauke and Msila. McKenzie then set his sights on his deputy Peace Mabe, criticizing her for condemning Israel’s participation in the 2024 Olympics in Paris and forcing politics to take “center stage.” Yet it’s hard to believe that McKenzie, who has long dabbled in political distractions, was too focused on local athletes to speak on Israel’s presence at the competition. His dismissal of Mabe, who is aligned to the ANC government’s solidarity toward Palestine, appears to have more to do with his allegiance to Christian Zionism. It will prove to be a hurdle for McKenzie as South Africa receives growing calls to lead an apartheid-era sporting boycott against the settler colony.

But for all his pleas to focus on sport, McKenzie wasn’t deterred from adding to the backlash and xenophobic pile facing Miss South Africa 2024 finalist Chidimma Vanessa Onwe Adetshina. Since being showcased as a contestant in the beauty contest, Adetshina’s eligibility has been aggressively dismissed because of her Nigerian and Mozambican heritage. Though it is unsurprising that McKenzie—like many South Africans apparently—is clueless about how citizenship actually works, he only worsened the vitriol facing the 23-year-old model from Soweto. Not only has a video of her Nigerian family members been picked apart, but details of her personal life have been subjected to a distinctly South African form of misogyny and sexism, sounding the alarm bells for safety and well-being as the competition draws closer. 

For those who have followed his rise in politics, Gayton McKenzie has long trafficked in empty PR stunts that are often mistaken for good governance in a country lacking it. The last 15 years should be a lesson on why South Africans should be wary of leaders who deploy an oafish persona to obscure their reactionary politics. As a nation whose coiffures and executive have been held ransom by an assembly of dubious actors, it’s easy to be charmed by officials who pander to disillusionment, respond to desperate calls for transparency, and prey on the tensions caused by an economic system that continues to marginalize the poor and working class. Though McKenzie has positioned himself as a reformed convict with insight into the lawlessness of politics, business, and the criminal underworld, he has frequently demonstrated the same ruthless desire for power, capital, and a breathtaking indifference to suffering and injustice. His proposals to bring Formula One back to South Africa, give his ministerial salary to charity, or broadcast Springbok on free-to-air TV may offer hope to those looking to reverse the fortunes of an ailing department. But history suggests these commitments will be remembered as nothing but a prolific track record of empty promises.