Teflon politician Peter Marais has gone solo. Under the motto ”Come home” he announced his own unnamed political party on Thursday.
”Several names have been thrown about. The most popular is New Labour Party, positioning us exactly were we want to be,” Marais said.
Coloured people had only had a voice in government through the Labour Party from 1969 until the unbanning of the African National Congress, he said.
Both of his former political homes, the New National Party and the Democratic Alliance, viewed Marais as their key to the coloured vote in the Western Cape. Yet during the current round of defections these political parties, and others, declined to have anything to do with him.
Marais leaves behind a chequered political history. He faces a corruption trial for his role in soliciting kickbacks in return for the approval of the controversial Roodefontein Golf Estate, and was suspended from the NNP in January.
During the first five months of 2002 Marais was the NNP’s Western Cape premier, but he had to resign after allegations of sexual harassment.