Internal divisions in the IFP run even deeper than Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s recent attacks on whites in the party would suggest, report Ann Eveleth and Mehlo
The house of cards the Inkatha Freedom Party stacked so hastily last year in a bid to project itself as a broad national party is swaying precariously this week, with deep internal tensions coming to the surface.
Party sources this week described the IFP as “rife” with internal divisions, and some predicted a purge following party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s weekend tirade against the “coterie of whites” in the party’s provincial caucus.
Buthelezi’s unprecedented public attack on members of his own party as “white racists with twisted minds” elicited claims of racism from opposition parties in KwaZulu/Natal and dealt a severe blow to party modernists’ efforts to win minority support in the coming local government elections. However, it appears the party’s fault lines run much deeper than just racial tensions.
Sources say the most prominent of fissures now plaguing the party is that between the provincial and national caucuses, a tension which reached new heights following exposure of the party’s controversial “20-point strategy proposal”. Sources say many provincial MPs resented the fact that such a strategy would place them in constant conflict with their African National Congress counterparts in the province, thus hampering the provincial government’s ability to deliver to its supporters on the ground.
While these tensions are said to have first arisen following disagreement over the Constitutional Assembly boycott, other points of contention between the caucuses include:
* The party’s July 21 deadline for the provincial constitution. The IFP-dominated constitutional committee projects the document will only be ready at the end of the year, after a process of consultation involving business and church leaders. Sources say the provincial caucus rejected outright a provincial constitution drafted by constitutional advisor Mario Ambrosini and presented to them as a fait accompli;
* The call for the adoption of the former KwaZulu flags and emblems. The constitutional committee had already decided to ask for public submissions on these.
The sources say Buthelezi’s charge that the strategy proposal was “leaked to the press by a white member of parliament in (KwaZulu/Natal) who is working to undermine our struggle for freedom” must be seen in the context of these wider tensions.
The sources add, however, that the remark was specifically directed at an “anti-Ambrosini” faction in KwaZulu/Natal, which identifies the constitutional advisor as the source of the most confrontational interventions. While this resentment is reportedly widepsread within the party’s provincial caucus, the “coterie” to which Buthelezi referred is said to comprise local government and housing MEC Peter Miller, constitutional committee chairman Arthur Konigkrammer, and provincial chief whip Mike Tarr.
While both Miller and Tarr have denied involvement in leaking the party document, Miller described the issue of white members of the party as “a sensitive internal issue … which is not facilitated by an exchange of media comment”.
Sources say Miller earned Buthelezi’s ire last week when he defied Premier Frank Mdlalose’s boycott of the Intergovernmental Forum to attend a meeting of local government ministers. His defiance, while in keeping with his persona as an efficient minister, was seen as rebellion over Mdlalose’s failure to consult the Cabinet on the issue.
Konigkrammer, who could not be reached for comment, is also said to have had his back against the wall recently after a party inquiry into election fund mismanagement found him — as the IFP’s campaign manager last year — ultimately responsible.
Tarr’s inclusion in the “coterie” underlines another party cleavage. As “newcomers” who joined the party in the search for a black political home in the run-up to all-race rule, the recruitment of Tarr and other experienced parliamentarians from the Democratic Party, National Party and former House of Delegates’ parties helped project the new “multiracial” image the party sought last year.
Their experience has seen many of them diving head first into their governmental duties and, in the spirit of the new democractic era, taking decisions — and sometimes making statements — based more on the information at hand than on the party’s broad strategy objectives.
While this “independence” has offered scope to party moderates — led by party secretary-general Ziba Jiyane — to promote the democratic reforms envisaged in the party’s recent constitution, and project the IFP as a broad-based party, sources say it has infuriated the party’s “old-guard”, including former KwaZulu Legislative Assembly members who are accustomed to taking their cue from Buthelezi.
Many of these newcomers also form the party’s “moderate” wing and this has brought them into conflict with Buthelezi on several occasions. Sources say these party moderates are currently fighting hard to prevent hardliners from putting the party back on a “civil war” footing over the standoff with the ANC.
Buthelezi’s decision to racialise his attack is also said to have sent tremors running through the ranks of these newcomers. Following shortly on constitutional negotiator Sipo Mzimela’s “anti-Indian” attack on Deputy Minister of Constitutional Affairs Mohammed Valli Moosa, sources say many newcomers — who are mostly white or Indian — fear they may fall by the wayside if the party retreats into its traditional laager of ethnic politics.
The sources say racial tensions have been brewing in the party for some time, and this week some provincial sources supported Buthelezi’s criticisms, saying that the people concerned “have no constituency and are just riding on the back of Africans”.
While the IFP has long had a “coterie” of white members, sources say racial tension began to surface last year as black members began to resent Buthelezi’s reliance on former constitutional negotiator Walter Felgate. Resentment among black MECs towards Cape Town’s intervention is also largely directed at Ambrosini and his white allies.
Racial tensions also surfaced recently in the party’s KwaZulu/ Natal caucus, with black MPs opposing Konigkrammer’s bid to take over the chairmanship of the constitutional committee from Indian MEC Advocate Ibrahim Bawa.