Richard Pillay

Sigamoney Richard Pillay (born 19 November 1957) is a South African politician who served in the National Assembly from 1999 to 2004, representing the Gauteng constituency. He was a member of the Democratic Party until April 2003, when he crossed the floor to the New National Party. He is a former member of Umkhonto we Sizwe and a former activist in the Unemployed Masses of South Africa.

Early life and career Pillay was born on 19 November 1957. During apartheid, he was a member of the anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC) and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). According to Pillay, MK tasked him with infiltrating the South African Police in the 1980s. However, MK's internal security department alleged that Pillay was working as a double agent for the apartheid security forces, and he was held in detention in MK prison camps – first in Angola and later in Uganda – from 1986 to 1989. Ahead of the 1999 general election, Umsa allied itself to the Democratic Party (DP),

Legislative career: 1999–2004 In the 1999 election, Pillay stood as a candidate for the DP, ranked fifth on the party's regional list in the Gauteng constituency. Although she did not provide a detailed explanation, she said that the intelligence services had lodged a complaint in December 2000, alleging that Pillay was interfering in operational matters of the South African Secret Service.

However, the DP cleared Pillay of wrongdoing in early 2002. He spent the next year leading his party's special task team on unemployment and serving as its deputy spokesman on labour and housing. and instead, in early April, he announced that he had defected to the New National Party (NNP). He left Parliament after the 2004 general election.