National Freedom Party president Ivan Barnes. (National Freedom Party/ Facebook)
National Freedom Party (NFP) secretary general Teddy Thwala has approached the Pietermaritzburg high court for an urgent interdict to stop party president Ivan Barnes from re-suspending him.
The application will be argued on Wednesday, the day before the return date in an earlier interdict which had been against Barnes and the NFP’s national working committee for suspending 13 key leaders of the KwaZulu-Natal based party.
Thwala has asked the court to intervene in what he described in court papers as “relentless, unlawful victimisation” by Barnes of himself and other party members who had challenged the outcome of its December 2023 elective conference in an earlier court action.
The tensions between groupings in the party have been raging since the death of its founder, Zanele Magwaza-Msibi, in 2021, sparking a series of court actions and forcing the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to suspend the NFP’s funding during 2023.
The 2023 elective conference was held as part of a package of conditions imposed on the party by the IEC for its funding to be released and for it to be allowed to participate in this year’s general elections in May.
While Barnes and Thwala were elected as part of the same leadership last December, the infighting — and the court applications — continued, with the result that the NFP ended up with just a single seat in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature after the 29 May elections.
Barnes suspended Thwala and 12 other NFP leaders shortly thereafter, but was forced to withdraw the letter when they went to court. He then issued Thwala with a fresh letter of suspension at the end of August, to which he has responded by against approaching the court for intervention.
In his affidavit submitted to court last week as part of the latest application, Thwala asked that a meeting of the NFP’s national working committee (NWC) held in Nongoma on 24 August — at which a resolution was taken to re-suspend him — be declared unlawful.
He asked that two letters of re-suspension issued by Barnes to him be declared unlawful and invalid as they were in contravention of the NFP’s constitution and requested that the court issue an order preventing Barnes or the national working committee from disciplining or suspending any party member until the court cases were concluded.
Thwala also asked the court to declare the actions of SLK Attorneys, who are acting on behalf of Barnes, as “unethical, irrational and unlawful” as they had previously acted for him in a number of cases involving the NFP.
Thwala further requested that the court issue an order interdicting and restraining SLK from acting for Barnes of the NFP working committee in any other matter against him or any other person in the future. He also requested that the court refer the conduct of the legal firm to the KwaZulu-Natal Legal Practice Council for possible sanction.
Thwala said Barnes was “engaged in a relentless campaign to destroy those he considers to be his political detractors and will stop at nothing”.
He said the NWC meeting at which the decision to re-suspend him was convened without inviting himself and a number of its members.
“It is clear from the modus operandi that a number of members of the NWC were deliberately omitted from invitations to attend meetings and later accused of absence,” Thwala said. “This is nothing short of mischief that should not be countenanced by this court.”
Thwala claimed that at least 20 people who were not accredited members of the national working committee had attended the meeting, along with the leaders of structures which were constitutionally mandated to participate in it.
As a result, the meeting was not lawfully constituted and its decisions — including his re-suspension and the disbandments of the NFP’s Zululand region — were not legitimate or legally binding.
Thwala said that the decision to suspend him for the second time had been taken without a hearing or any form of process as outlined in the NFP constitution, the Constitution of the country and his rights to natural justice.
On the issue of SLK Attorneys, Thwala said the firm “holds privileged information against me” and that he had personally instructed it to act on his behalf, and on behalf of others, in numerous disputes in and out of court since 2018.
These included cases he had brought against the IEC and against the party in leadership disputes between 2021 and earlier this year.
Thwala said that in all of these cases he had shared “privileged information” with the legal firm which made it “unfair and prejudicial” for SLK to now represent the NFP in its court battle with him.
He said that he had not been able to carry out his duties as secretary general of the NFP — a post to which he had been elected — and that his removal from the position would “foreseeably cause untold and possibly incalculable prejudice to me and my career as a politician”.
Should the court not grant the urgent order and at a later stage rule that his removal was unlawful, it might be “impossible” for him to be restored to his lawful position and to undo the damage that had been done.
The NFP’s vote in the 81-seat KwaZulu-Natal legislature gives the government of provincial unity led by premier Thami Ntuli of the Inkatha Freedom Party a slender majority over the uMkhonto weSizwe party and the Economic Freedom Fighters.
The infighting has the potential of impacting on the stability of Ntuli’s government, which also includes the Democratic Alliance and the ANC, should it reach the stage where the party collapses — or is deregistered by the IEC.
The NFP is also under threat of liquidation over an unpaid R25 million debt to Ezulweni Investments, which has successfully taken the party to court for posters, banners and other election material it provided the party with in 2019.