IFP President Velenkosi Hlabisa. (Sandile Ndlovu/Getty Images)
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) president Velenkosini Hlabisa will remain in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial legislature and lead the party’s campaign for the 2024 national and provincial elections from the party’s stronghold.
Hlabisa will not take up the seat in the National Assembly left vacant by the death of party founder and president emeritus Mangosuthu Buthelezi, which will be filled by the party after a mourning period has been completed.
Hlabisa had earlier told the Mail & Guardian that he preferred to retain the “strategic” KwaZulu-Natal position, which has been central to the party’s growth strategy since 2016.
Although Hlabisa will lead the IFP election campaign next year, Buthelezi will remain its face and will continue to be its brand, a tribute to his part in establishing the party and ensuring its long-term viability.
The IFP founder has historically been the focal point of its election campaigns — and perhaps the party’s strongest drawcard among its supporters and voters for more than 40 years.
This is likely to continue, with a recent survey by the Social Research Foundation showing that support for the party in KwaZulu-Natal had increased from 18.2% to 31.4% after Buthelezi’s death last month.
The survey showed a similar trend nationally, with support rising from 14.6% to 21.5%, a significant increase that will boost the IFP leadership’s confidence in both their decision and their ability to take ground off the ANC.
The governing party was the biggest victim of the IFP’s growth in support in the province, dropping 11.6% since Buthelezi’s death, unlike nationally, where its support grew during the same period.
In an interview with the M&G this week, Hlabisa said the party had decided from 2019 to deploy him in the province, its “strongest base”, where he would lead the campaign to take back control of KwaZulu-Natal from the ANC.
“This was part of the strategy we decided upon as a party to build a springboard for the IFP in the province. That decision still remains. After the death of the Prince of KaPhindangene, there were people suggesting that I take up his seat in parliament, but these were not IFP members,” he said.
“We cannot allow faceless people on social media to deter us from a strategy we decided upon as a party and which is delivering results in KwaZulu-Natal.”
At the time of Buthelezi’s death, a section of the party had been pushing for the IFP KwaZulu-Natal provincial chairperson, Thami Ntuli, to stand as premier candidate, and for Hlabisa to move to parliament to make way for this.
Hlabisa leads the IFP the provincial legislature, while Ntuli is the mayor of the King Cetshwayo district municipality.
Hlabisa recently survived an attempt by 20 members of the IFP national council to remove him through a vote of no confidence and the confirmation that he will remain in the province is an indication that he has further consolidated his position since.
Hlabisa said the IFP strategy had paid off in KwaZulu-Natal as it had taken 10 wards off the ANC in by-elections since 2021, while losing only one to the governing party.
“The 10-1 result in the by elections speaks for the effectiveness of our strategy, which has allowed us to take control and co-govern a number of key municipalities in conjunction with the DA [Democratic Alliance],” Hlabisa said.
“It is also a great boost in morale for the party, and a strong indicator of the kind of results we are working towards in the province in 2024,” he said. “Our strategy is paying off, and it would not be in the interest of the party for us to abandon it.”
The IFP has made a comeback in KwaZulu-Natal since 2016, regaining ground it lost in both the province and in local government to the ANC and the National Freedom Party (NFP) from 2009 to 2014.
In 2016, it took 18.39% of the vote provincially, up on the 16% it dropped to in 2011, and regained control of Zululand and five other municipalities it had lost as a result of the defection of members — and voters — to the NFP.
In 2019, the IFP regained its status as the official opposition in the province it once controlled, taking six seats, while in 2021 it took 24.24% of the vote across KwaZulu-Natal, growth which it hopes to improve upon.
An agreement with the DA that both support the party with the largest presence in each by-election has allowed them to take the 10 wards off the ANC since then.
They have also signed a cooperation agreement over delivery in the councils they co-govern, and are both signatories to the Multiparty Charter for South Africa, a coalition agreement aimed at collectively removing the ANC from office.
“We believe that we can capitalise on this upward trajectory in the province and nationally in the elections and that we have a real opportunity to remove the ANC,” Hlabisa said.
He said that remaining in KwaZulu-Natal allowed him to work closer with party structures, and made access to Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga and North West, where the party would be campaigning ahead of the polls, easier.
“It would be very difficult to run a national election campaign while commuting from Cape Town, compared with the ease of accessing the provinces we are concentrating on from KwaZulu-Natal,” he said.
The IFP will launch its national manifesto in KwaZulu-Natal at a date to be determined when election day is finalised, followed by provincial launches in the other provinces on which it has focused.
Hlabisa said that although he would lead the campaign as party president, Buthelezi would remain its face, and its “brand”, a decision which the IFP leadership had taken in recognition of his contribution to the party he led for more than 40 years.
“The campaign will be led by me as the IFP president, but the Prince of kaPhindangene will remain as the brand of the party going into the election and going forward,” Hlabisa said.