Visvin Reddy

Visvin Gopal Reddy (born 7 December 1970) is a South African businessman and politician from Durban. He has been the leader of African Democratic Change since 2020 and represents the party as a local councillor in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.

Reddy entered politics in 1993 as a founding member of the Minority Front before defecting to the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2004. After two months as a member of the DA, he spent a decade as a member of the African National Congress. He was also the founder of People Against Petrol and Paraffin Price Increases, a prominent civic organisation in Durban.

Early life and education Reddy was born on 7 December 1970 in Shallcross, a suburb of Durban in the former Natal Province. His father was a policeman and his mother was a housewife. He began teaching high school students in 1993, first in Johannesburg and then in Dannhauser. He subsequently quit teaching to pursue politics full-time.

By 2001, Reddy was the leader of the MF's caucus in the municipal council, a member of the council's executive committee, and the chairperson of its Tenders and Contracts Committee. In February of that year, managers of two hotels in KwaZulu-Natal accused Reddy of having extorted or solicited bribes from them; he had apparently demanded free weekend stays in exchange for a commitment to send government business to the hotels.

Democratic Alliance In late December 2003, when it transpired that Reddy had applied for full-time administrative jobs in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, Reddy assured the press that he intended to continue to represent the MF. Highlighting his friendship with Rajbansi and his involvement in the party's campaign ahead of the upcoming 2004 general election, he said that he would "be focusing all my energies on ensuring a MF victory". However, on 3 February 2004, Reddy announced at a press conference that he was resigning from the council and from the MF in order to join the DA, a larger opposition party. His resignation triggered a highly competitive by-election in Chatsworth.

African National Congress Reddy had left the DA in order to join the African National Congress (ANC), the national governing party. He later said that the ANC had approached him and that he had agreed because "I was not comfortable in the DA, so I didn't waste time". The DA and Inkatha Freedom Party objected to his appointment, with the DA alleging that the job offer was the ANC's way of paying its "political debts" to Reddy.

After leaving Sutcliffe's office, Reddy went on to work in administrative positions in the provincial Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, while rising in influence in the ANC. He also returned to local government as an eThekwini councillor for the ANC, until the 2011 local elections, when he was excluded from the party's final list of candidates. He nonetheless campaigned for the ANC in 2011, controversially telling a party rally that, "If Jesus were here on election day he would vote ANC."

"Go to India" comment In May 2014, Reddy invited controversy by posting in a Facebook comment that Indian critics of the ANC government should "go to India". In his comment, he wrote:To you anti-ANC commentators... wait until May 8. The ANC will still rule this country. You whiners should leave. Go to India and you will see what a good life we have here. Continue with your garbage and marginalise yourself further. Don’t blame the ANC, blame yourself. You have not yet embraced democracy. Only a foolish Indian in South Africa will not engage the majority constructively... On 3 May, the provincial ANC suspended his membership in the party pending a disciplinary inquiry, saying that his Facebook comment was "out of line with the position of the organisation" and with the organisation's non-racialism. However, he denied having been present at all.

Reddy later left the ANC, in his words because "I had gotten tired of the infighting"; he focused on non-partisan community activism thereafter.

People Against Petrol and Paraffin Price Increases While pursuing his business career, Reddy became founder and convenor of a lobby group called People Against Petrol and Paraffin Price Increases (Pappi), which protested increases in the price of petrol in South Africa. Reddy said that the group had undertaken to meet with the Russian Embassy about the sale of crude oil to South Africa, and he later claimed that the group had 300,000 followers. '''

During this period, on 1 May 2019, Minister Gugile Nkwinti appointed Reddy to a four-year term as a member of the board of directors at Umgeni Water, a state-owned entity.

African Democratic Change In 2020, Reddy was elected as president of African Democratic Change (Adec), a minor political party founded by Makhosi Khoza. Over the next year, he occasionally received media attention for minor controversies. He was an outspoken advocate for the use of Ivermectin in treating COVID-19, leading protests on the issue and taking a solution of the medicine during a Facebook livestream. Later the same year, the ANC accused him and his party of "despicable provocation and dangerous race-baiting" after an Adec protest called for the release of the "Phoenix heroes", their name for the individuals who faced criminal charges for their involvement in vigilante violence in Phoenix during civil unrest in July.

Under Adec's banner, he stood as a candidate in the 2021 local elections and returned to the eThekwini council as a proportional-representation councillor in November 2021.

UMkhonto we Sizwe On 3 January 2024, Reddy announced after he had a long meeting with former South African president Jacob Zuma that his party, the Adec, would form a coalition with Zuma's UMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party after the 2024 general elections. Reddy was later appointed the provincial leader of the MK party in KwaZulu-Natal. On 5 March 2024, Reddy threatened violence if the MK party was not allowed to contest the 2024 general elections.

On 9 March 2024, it was revealed that Reddy occupies the 9th position on the MK Party's parliamentary candidate list for the 2024 general elections.

Personal life In 1993, Reddy married Sharmaine Reddy (née Naidoo) in Chatsworth.

In August 2016, while sitting in his Mercedes-Benz in traffic in Pinetown, Reddy was stabbed twice in the arm in a mugging. He was hospitalised in January 2023 with illness caused by enteropathogenic E. coli.