Mehmet Dag, leader of the tiny TRUTH party, has been blowing Mashaba’s horn a lot recently. On the 30th of March, he called for Herman Mashaba to be appointed Minister of Home Affairs, and was supported in this statement by ActionSA official Henriette Frohlich, who retweeted him.

He has supported ActionSA in their budget manoevre against the DA, in their Tshwane mayoral effort, and several other causes. While that doesn’t mean anything in itself, the two parties have been appearing rather closely coordinated lately. ActionSA has taken to absorbing small local parties as part of their effort to expand beyond their small urban base, with the leader of the tiny Forum 4 Service Delivery (F4SD) becoming Mashaba's second-in-command.

ActionSA members Lerato Ngobeni and Herman Mashaba have called for Phil Craig, leader of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group, due to his secessionist stance. On March 27, 2025, Ngobeni, ActionSA’s Parliamentary Chief Whip, urged Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber to reject Craig’s citizenship application,  arguing his advocacy undermines national unity. The next day, Mashaba escalated this by demanding the revocation of Craig’s permanent residency - effectively a call for his deportation.

But ActionSA didn’t start this trend. Mehmet Dag started a petition to remove Craig in October last year. Formerly of the Hermanus-based pro-land-invasion organisation known as the Land Party, he now heads a miniscule party called TRUTH, which despite almost never getting more than single-digit support in any constituency, has managed to field a candidate in almost every by-election in the country. How this is funded is unclear.

Mashaba and other ActionSA members have retweeted Mehmet’s calls for Craig’s deportation several times - as if it weren’t enough to call for it separately. Herman Mashaba has also supported Mehmet’s calls for the arrest of Stephane Cohen and the closure of Zanzou nightclub in Pretoria and Souk in Cape Town, over alleged abuse by security staff.

They have also shared positions on the case of the rape of a 7-year old girl, “Cwecwe”. Her mother, a police officer, chose to demand the DNA of the school principal, despite the investigating officer having confirmed that he had no contact with the child on the day of the crime. AfriForum having taken up his case however, has triggered a landslide of calls for his arrest from various politicians. This is of course, circumstantial, and so may not mean much.

But the friendly relations between ActionSA and Dag raises a few eyebrows. Dag has been vociferous in his attacks on Jews and whites at home and abroad, as well as being credibly accused of sexually abusing his Downs-syndrome child. He is generally regarded as extremely unhinged, and makes outrageously and obviously inaccurate statements at an industrial pace on social media, generally accusing anyone white or Jewish of various kinds of evil without much factual justification, usually with some dramatic element of conspiracy theory, and calls for arrest.

He is currently facing arrest for calling AfriForum terrorists, and is floundering after calling for the arrest of several online critics, inviting supporters to seize them wherever they find them, including Tim Flack who exposed the child abuse allegations against him, which you can read here.  

What degree of tangible support exists between the two parties is unclear, but their convergence over current issues is suggestive of at least some degree of friendliness. ActionSA members' sharing of Mehmet's social media posts however, suggest at least a degreee of sympathy.

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