Cape Town – The Patriotic Alliance (PA) President, Gayton McKenzie, has lodged a complaint with Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests against ActionSA MP Dereleen James.
The move follows MP James’ announcement that she was going to lay a criminal complaint of intimidation against McKenzie, who is also the minister of sport, arts and culture.
In a statement made available to The Bulrushes on Tuesday, 24 March 2026, the PA stated that McKenzie has “today formally lodged a complaint with Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests against ActionSA MP Dereleen James”.
The PA explained that the complaint was not about political disagreement.
“It concerns a pattern of conduct which, on any fair reading, falls below the standards required of Members of Parliament.”
In his submission, PA President McKenzie sets out that Ms. James has breached multiple provisions of the Code of Ethical Conduct.
Mckenzie accuses ActionSA MP James of failing to act in accordance with the public trust.
He alleges that MP James failed to place the public interest above personal or political interests, to maintain public confidence in Parliament, and to refrain from using derogatory language or bringing Parliament into disrepute on social media.
The move follows MP James comPlaint to to the police in which she alleges that Mackenzie intimidated her.
The ActionSA MP laid criminal complaint at Cape Town Central Police Station on Tuesday, alleging that veiled threats he made during a weekend Facebook Live broadcast were designed to intimidate her after she submitted parliamentary questions probing his department’s international travel expenses — which exceeded 20 trips — and the presence of PA deputy president Kenny Kunene at the home of alleged “Big Five” cartel figure Katiso “KT” Molefe.
In the video, PA president McKenzie is heard speaking about his 24-hour taxpayer-funded security detail.
He tells MP James to “use my name while it lasts” and added that “the road is long”.
MP James said this “thuggish behaviour” left her fearing for her safety and that of her family.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba condemned the comments as a direct attack on an elected MP performing her constitutional oversight duties and said the party would also write to the Speaker of Parliament seeking protection for James.
However, McKenzie has denied issuing any threats and has instead laid a complaint against MP James with Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests.
“At the centre of the complaint is Ms James’s deliberate mischaracterisation of a statement made by President McKenzie during a public Facebook Live engagement,” stated the PA.
“In that engagement, he used the phrase ‘the road is long,’ which is little more than a commonly understood idiomatic expression meaning that time reveals the truth, that perspectives change, and that those who win in the short term do not always win in the long term.
“Ms. James has sought to present this as a threat. It was not.
“It is necessary to be absolutely clear about the reference to security in the same remarks.
“President McKenzie did not mention his security detail as a warning, nor as a suggestion that Ms. James should fear for her safety, nor as any form of implied threat.”
The PA said its president referred to his continuous security presence for one reason only: to demonstrate the practical impossibility of the allegations being made against him.
That explanation was deliberately stripped of its context and repackaged by Ms. James into a narrative of “threat” and “intimidation”.
For more than two decades, his movements and engagements have been public and visible, and he is now continuously accompanied by members of the South African Police Service VIP Protection Unit.
This is constant, close-protection presence.
The point he was making is straightforward: for the allegations against him to be true, those officers would have to be either unaware of, or complicit in, the alleged crimes that Ms. James appears to believe are possible.
“’That is not credible,” stated the PA.
“That explanation was deliberately stripped of its context and repackaged by Ms. James into a narrative of ‘threat’ and ‘ intimidation.”
The PA said it will allow the Ethics process to run its course, will continue to focus on delivery in the Government of National Unity, and will not allow itself to be distracted by political sideshows.
