Ann Eveleth
Recruited into the United Democratic Front in 1989 and booted out of the African National Congress eight years later, United Democratic Movement general secretary Sifiso Nkabinde is a classic case study of the theory that it’s better to have someone inside your tent pissing out than outside pissing in.
It took a virtual flood around the ANC tent to spur party leaders acting on this theory to oust Nkabinde. Sixteen months after his expulsion amid allegations that he was a “police spy and agent provocateur”, more than 80 people have died in Richmond and the ANC’s tent is now soaking wet.
Bolstered by his April 1998 acquittal on 16 counts of murder and two of incitement to murder, Nkabinde has breathed new life into the UDM in KwaZulu-Natal. The fledgling party was wracked by infighting and lethargy in his absence, but has catapulted back into the spotlight since his return. Although this has happened on the back of violence, it is clear that Nkabinde is the soul of the new party in the province.
A burly, charismatic and often charming leader, Nkabinde has demonstrated an uncanny ability to rise quickly through political ranks. The ANC elected him as its first KwaZulu-Natal Midlands regional secretary a mere three years after he joined the movement.
Nkabinde’s rise in the UDM has been even more meteoric. Suspended from Bantu Holomisa’s National Consultative Forum during his murder trial, Nkabinde joined the forum’s successor, the UDM, the day after his release – and in less than three months amassed enough power to win both the KwaZulu- Natal chair and the post of national general secretary.
The secret of Nkabinde’s power lies in a certain kind of strength. The trouncing he received at the ANC’s hands during a municipal by-election in Richmond shortly after his expulsion – the ANC won four out of five wards, and ANC candidate Rampathie Naidoo defeated Nkabinde in his own ward – suggests his previously undisputed support was due more to an iron-fisted approach than to policy.
The political mythology surrounding Nkabinde has it that Richmond ANC Youth League leader Mzwandile Mbongwa recruited him into the movement in the late 1980s in a bid to turn a local wildcard businessman into a bulwark against the Inkatha Freedom Party.
If true, it suggests the bitterest of ironies, because Nkabinde’s former bodyguard and other supporters were later convicted for Mbongwa’s assassination in March 1994.
Nkabinde was also tried, but acquitted, in April 1998 for the murder of Mbongwa and three others killed in the same attack. The ANC claims Mbongwa raised concerns about Nkabinde before his death.
In a sign that little had changed, Nkabinde descended on his Magoda stronghold following his acquittal flanked by heavily armed bodyguards who announced his arrival by firing shots in the air.
New alliances bred during his incarceration, through prison visits by IFP heavyweights and others, became clear when Thomas Shabalala, ousted from the IFP, embraced him at court.
That, and the presence of IFP warlords Phillip Powell and David Ntombela at Nkabinde’s home after his release, must have sent shudders down the spines of ANC provincial leaders.
The party had overlooked Nkabinde’s flaws for years in the hope of defeating the IFP in the area, but now faced the prospect of three warlords – each of whom has been linked to the former police security branch – joining forces against it.
The prospect of a growing UDM-IFP alliance is likely to motivate the ANC to press harder for a peace agreement with the IFP, in a bid to reduce the size of the threat it faces.
Ironically, Nkabinde and Ntombela first joined forces under the auspices of this peace effort. Speaking in the provincial legislature on the eve of the 1996 municipal polls, the two declared that they had been warlords who were now becoming peacelords. “Let us go to Mount Everest and tell the world that the war is over,” declared Nkabinde at the time.
His words the day after his expulsion, during rallies held to mobilise support against the ANC, were more prophetic, however. He warned that the ANC would trigger a new “war” if it interfered with his support base. Shabalala and Powell also attended Nkabinde’s post- expulsion press conference.
Within a month, nine ANC Richmond councillors who had granted Nkabinde “the freedom of the town” resigned in protest at his expulsion. Days later Rodney van der Byl, one of two councillors who refused to step down, was murdered. Richmond has never been the same.
Born to merchant parents in Magoda, Nkabinde claims a different history. He traces his political activism to early 1988, when he led a march through Richmond “to challenge the authority” of a local IFP-aligned chief and to demand the incorporation of ANC-dominated Ndaleni into Richmond, “because we had no say in the affairs of the town”.
Nkabinde went to Ndala High School and Georgedale College in Pietermaritzburg before returning to teach at his former Richmond school. He says he quit teaching in 1986 because “I realised that I could not continue teaching in apartheid education. The underdevelopment of the area and the conditions of the people drew me into politics. I could see the people were living a bad life.”
Nkabinde says he joined the ANC underground in 1989, and received military training in Angola and the erstwhile Transkei, where he met Holomisa, before returning to join forces with the late South African Communist Party stalwart Harry Gwala in Pietermaritzburg’s Dambuza township.
Nkabinde says, “My political affiliation was not so clear until I was elected to positions” in the ANC. Nkabinde become the ANC’s provincial deputy secretary in 1994, with Gwala’s backing.
Two years later, the ANC sent Minister of Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development Mohammed Valli Moosa to attend a provincial conference where he instructed Nkabinde not to contest the post of provincial secretary.
Nkabinde defied the order, but lost narrowly. Much to the ANC’s consternation, however, he polled the 13th-highest number of votes in the race for the provincial executive committee.
Nkabinde traces his problems with the ANC to the leadership battle which followed Gwala’s death in 1995.
Vital Statistics
Born: June 24 1961
Defining characteristics: The political hues of a chameleon; heavily armed bodyguards; and a “vision” from God during his eight-month imprisonment
Favourite people: Roelf Meyer and Bantu Holomisa
Least favourite people:KwaZulu-Natal’s ANC MEC for Health Zweli Mkhize and President Nelson Mandela
Likely to say: “Why am I not arrested?”
Least likely to say: “My supporters are out of control”