Marion Edmunds
FREE State Premier Patrick Lekota is concerned that the African National Congress-aligned Congress of Traditional Leaders (Contralesa) is spreading its tentacles into the Free State. He has raised the matter with Eastern Cape Premier Raymond Mhlaba.
Lekota’s concern adds to growing anxiety among ANC leaders about the role of traditional leaders in the new South African democracy. ANC sources say there is particular concern about traditional leaders led by charismatic but constroversial Contralesa president Chief Phatekile Holomisa, who has taken an increasingly defiant stand on traditional
While Lekota has refused to comment on what is seen as a highly sensitive matter, his approach to Mhlaba was confirmed this week by Eastern Cape director of traditional affairs Max Mlonyeni, who acknowledged traditional leaders had the power to undermine stability in rural areas, should they be dissatisfied with the government’s performance.
Complaints have been lodged against Holomisa by members of the ANC parliamentary caucus and by the ANC branches in the Eastern Cape and in Kwazulu-Natal. They range from outrage at his meeting Inkatha Freedom Party-aligned amakhosi in KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year, to his call for a boycott of the local government elections in some Eastern Cape areas.
ANC secretary-general Cyril Ramaphosa said this week that the ANC’s disciplinary committee was dealing with the case
While a number of ANC members are reportedly baying for Holomisa’s expulsion from the organisation, it is likely that the leadership will consider the matter very carefully.
The ANC is itself divided over the extent to which traditional forms of government should be grafted onto a Western-style democracy. The case of Holomisa highlights this division.
He is one of the few ANC politicians who has been able to command respect as an MP as well as a chief of his tribe. As such he is extremely useful if he co-operates with the ANC, but could be deadly opposition.
While certain elements in the ANC hate him passionately and view him as “power-mad” and a “political whore”, he has won respect from opposition parties for the way he has chaired the Parliamentary Committee on Land Affairs. A source in an NGO which dealt closely with the committee said that he was an impartial chairman who “knew his stuff” and was “clued
Holomisa, however, does not have the wholehearted support of traditional leaders in the ANC. His leadership of Contralesa is disputed by a smaller group of traditional leaders in the ANC, led by Senator Victor Sifora. Sifora accuses Holomisa of “kidnapping” the organisation from true Contralesa members and setting up a false national executive, with Winnie Mandela as treasurer.
Even IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said this week that the ANC’s handling of traditional leadership and the disciplining of Holomisa is starting to divide the organisation.
Holomisa’s achilles heel is that he struggles to find funding for his organisation. While the Mandela name could pull some money for Contralesa, international aid organisations or embassies are unlikely to fund an organisation which supports traditional beliefs that sometimes clash with democratic values.
Holomisa is now out of circulation as he prepares for a royal wedding in Mqandula in rural Transkei with Bukelwa Matanzima, a princess of royal blood and member of the powerful Transkei Matanzima family. The wedding is to take place on December 15 and 16, and is seen by commentators to be as much of a political alliance as a tie of love.