David Seymour has responded to Nelson Mandela's grandson after he tore apart Seymour's claim Nelson would have "campaigned for ACT" if he were still alive.
It comes after a speech Seymour gave in Upper Moutere on Thursday to his supporters at the Moutere Hills Community Centre, Stuff reported.
His speech touched on several themes, including increasing the prison population, and co-governance - that's where Seymour then made the claim.
"I dare say, if Nelson Mandela was alive today he would be campaigning for ACT," he told the crowd.
But the anti-apartheid activist's grandson, Kweku Mandela, ridiculed Seymour's claim on X/Twitter on Saturday morning.
"My grandfather definitely loved the people of New Zealand and I can say categorically he would not campaign for this today or any other day in the past," he wrote.
On a visit to New Zealand in 1995, Nelson said both black South Africans and Māori have had similar histories of "pain of conquest, dispossession and oppression".
He called Māori "brothers and sisters" of indigenous South Africans.
In response to Kweku, Seymour said people are free to have different opinions.
"Well he's got 17 grandchildren. The great man was very prolific," he told Newshub on Saturday afternoon.
"So there was always the risk one of them would disagree with us. But isn't that just a wonderful thing that people can have different views."
He said he would "love the opportunity" to explain ACT's position to Kweku, adding he's "always been inspired" by Nelson Mandela's push for universal human rights.
But he argues that's at odds with Labour's approach to "co-government".
"Dare I say it, if the great man was alive today, he'd be campaigning for ACT," Seymour reiterated once again to Newshub on Saturday.
"Nelson Mandela said that all people are born equal, with each entitled in equal measure to life, liberty, prosperity, human rights, and good governance."
Mandela is "an inspiration to me and many people who think like me", Seymour said.
Co-governance, rather than co-government, has been part of Aotearoa's history for decades, such as the special management structures for Te Urewera Park, and the Waikato and Whanganui rivers.
But Seymour argued the Government's efforts in this space "separates" people.
"What Labour is doing is nowhere near as bad or as extreme as what Nelson Mandela fought, but the principle of it that underlies the same thinking is unmistakably there."
He said ACT is instead campaigning on "universal human rights".
After apartheid in South Africa ended in the early 1990s, Nelson Mandela became the country's leader in 1994. He died in 2013.
