By Kouthar Sambo

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has been hit by yet another high-profile resignation by former Member of Parliament (MP) Ghaleb Cachalia.

Cachalia announced his resignation in a post on the X (formerly Twitter) platform on Thursday.

This comes after the party has barred him from commenting on the aggression in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking on VOCS’s DriveTime show on Friday, Cachalia said he has been outspoken on several issues.

“When I spoke out on Gaza, I was told that only the Shadow Minister of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) could speak on it, and I said no. This is an issue of international concern with ramifications for us here. This is a matter of moral concern,” Cachalia declared.

And when you deal with matters of moral concern, explained Cachalia, you cannot have what he described as “hard and fast rules.”

“You allow the freedom of expression and freedom of conscience in evoking these issues. But the DA chose not to do so. That is a ruse to ensure what is said does not ruffle the feathers,” asserted Cachalia.

Meanwhile, the DA’s National Spokesperson Solly Malatsi, refuted the claims by Cachalia and cited them as “an attempt to justify his resignation.”

According to Malatsi, this includes the “mischaracterisation of the party’s position on the war in Gaza.”

“The DA remains irrevocably committed to peace, to a two-state solution, and the creation of a sovereign and unoccupied Palestine in peaceful co-existence next to a secure Israel,” expressed Malatsi in a statement.

“His disrespect for party’s processes, for his colleagues, and the diversity of views in the DA has mounted over time, culminating in his violation of a caucus decision that the party’s Shadow Minister for DIRCO would be the spokesperson on the war in Gaza,” maintained Malatsi.

In response to this, Cachalia added that the DA has shied away from developing any policy on this issue from a very early stage.

He further added that they cannot develop the policy because they are “scared to say what the policy is.”

“There is no policy as it has not been ratified. These are the musings of leadership, it is not a policy. They then use that to say that I had contradicted policy,” argued Cachalia.

“I had not contradicted policy, however, I said there is an evolving genocide in Palestine. That seemed to have crossed the line, and they got upset about this,” detailed Cachalia.

They then fired me from the position I held, he explained, even though I had a recent evaluation on a performance level, where I scored 100%.

“The DA is now between a rock and a hard place – the weight of the votes that they may lose against the power of the purse on the other side,” added Cachalia.

Photo: Ghaleb Cachalia/Facebook