Changes in local government are the source of renewed intrigue in the Zulu royal house, writes Ivor Powell
The latest spat between Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini on one side and the Zulu chiefs under Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi on the other reads like an intrigue from another time – a battle for the soul and the loyalty of the Zulu people.
The king reportedly lives in fear for his life after the amakhosi, the council of elders gathered in the KwaZulu-Natal House of Traditional Leaders, issued a statement censuring his alleged failure to identify with them or to provide his people with the symbolic leadership vested in him.
Members of the king’s inner circle at Nongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal have apparently gone into hiding amid rising tensions in the area, death threats and attacks on their homes.
Pointedly, the amakhosi failed to attend the king’s birthday celebrations recently, or to provide tribute in the form of cattle and gifts.
Buthelezi, chair of the provincial House of Traditional Leaders, last week gave an interview to the IFP-owned Ilanga newspaper in which he attacked the character of the king. He detailed alleged involvement of the monarch in apartheid-sponsored political parties in the 1970s, and painted him as a wastrel and a spendthrift.
By way of contrast, at the IFP’s congress in Ulundi last month the party passed a resolution describing Buthelezi as a “towering historical figure who provides lustre to the entire continent”. It urged “Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi to provide the country with his much-needed leadership”.
Behind these almost medieval palace intrigues is the unfolding of some all too contemporary power politics – politics that look as much to the future as they do to the traditional past.
The progressive isolation of Zwelithini – which has coincided with the king’s own attempts to remove himself from party politics since before the 1994 elections – serves to underline that what is at stake is not so much Zulu tradition as the survival of the IFP.
At the centre of the row lies a legislative jigsaw being put together in advance of local government elections in 2000. The main stumbling block is the Municipal Structures Act of 1998, which replaces the Local Government Transition Act of 1993.
>From the IFP’s viewpoint, the problem with the new legislation is its most basic premise: the entrenching of democratic principles in the structures of local government.
Whereas the 1993 Act created provisions for the amakhosi in tribal trust lands to serve as ex officio local government officials, the new law extends the purview of elected representation.
While amakhosi – as citizens – are permitted to stand for election, and while in certain cases “traditional authorities that traditionally observe a system of customary law in the area of a municipality” may be represented at municipal level by their traditional leaders, the new law limits that representation to 10% of any municipality.
At the same time, the work of the Municipal Demarcation Board – also mandated in terms of 1998 legislation – has further compromised the authority of the amakhosi at the level of local government.
In defining municipal structures, the demarcation board has specified that municipalities in the new dispensation will be centred on hubs of economic activity. In effect this means the deeply rural areas directly controlled by the amakhosi – the former tribal trust lands under the apartheid homelands system – will be brought together with urban centres in local government structures.
The result is the voice of the amakhosi is unlikely to be heard as stridently as in the past.
National director of local government Crispin Olver says direct representation will, however, not be the only role played by traditional leaders in the new dispensation.
“Traditional leaders will still have an important role to play,” Olver observes. “We are looking at a co-operative model whereby the chiefs as the representatives of tradition are involved in a dialogue with local government structures in developing their areas.
“As custodians of land through customary law, the chiefs will also be in a landowner-to-council relationship with the local councils which can be used in the process of development.”
What Olver doesn’t specify is that, in the new dispensation, the purse strings will be held by municipal structures. Under earlier legislation, money paid to local government structures in areas represented by the amakhosi was directly under their control. This was in addition to stipends paid to them as members of the House of Traditional Leaders.
But for the IFP the financial considerations are unlikely to hurt as much as the political considerations.
The role of the amakhosi in the politics of KwaZulu-Natal lies at the heart of the IFP’s vision of a “Kingdom of KwaZulu”, as enshrined in the party’s provincial constitution. This builds political power around a constitutional monarchy in which the powers of the king are severely circumscribed in favour of the authority of the House of Traditional Leaders.
The house is led by Buthelezi wearing the hat of “traditional prime minister to the king” – an assumed office which anthropologists have questioned as being without precedent or substance, and which the king himself has challenged, inconclusively, through the courts.