Wonder Hlongwa
Estranged Inkatha Freedom Party leader Sipho Mzimela may rejoin the African National Congress, according to political colleagues who say he has been seeking advice about where his political future lies.
Mzimela would not comment this week, except to confirm that he is still an IFP MP and a member of the party.
He refused to be drawn on whether he is going to announce his resignation from the party.
Many senior ANC leaders believe Mzimela might join them soon.
Said an ANC national executive committee member: “Who thought that [Walter] Felgate would join the ANC, let alone Mzimela? Remember, Mzimela was once a member of the ANC.”
Mzimela was sacked as IFP deputy national chair two weeks ago. Last week President Nelson Mandela, at the request of IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi, removed Mzimela from his position of minister of correctional services.
The showdown between the IFP national council and Mzimela began last year when Mzimela openly favoured a merger between the IFP and the ANC.
Buthelezi, clearly angered, said at the time: “Mzimela embarrassed the party by shooting his mouth off.”
Since then Mzimela has won praise from ANC leaders and attracted ire from his IFP cohorts.
This week he said he did not regret losing his position in the Cabinet: “It was the best thing to do.”
He said he had discussed the loss of his position with several people he trusts.
One ANC leader said Mzi- mela would be welcomed back into the party he left in the mid-Eighties when he defected to the IFP to be Inkatha’s representative in the United States.
When he returned to South Africa, Mzimela was offered the position of minister of public works in the KwaZulu homeland government under Buthelezi.
When the row over the ANC merger erupted, a senior IFP member said Mzimela vowed he would not leave the party. “As a priest I believed him, but politicians can change their minds.”