Jaspreet Kindra
President Thabo Mbeki has organised a top- level meeting with traditional leaders aligned to the Inkatha Freedom Party to address the amakhosi’s concerns that their power base in KwaZulu-Natal will be eroded by new local government structures.
The traditional leaders, who have been pressing Mbeki to hear them for several months, are to meet in Ulundi on Friday to plot their strategy. Provincial MEC for Local Government Inkosi Nyanga Ngubane said despite the delay in the president’s response, he hoped the meeting with Mbeki on May 16 “would bring some resolution” to the amakhosi’s concerns.
At issue is the way in which new local boundaries will cut across IFP strongholds, and how representation of the amakhosi will now be limited to 10% in the local government councils.
The African National Congress’s KwaZulu- Natal deputy chair, Zweli Mkhize, said he failed to see why there “should be a reason for conflict” on the demarcation issue. He reasoned that the amakhosi had not placed a counter-proposal to the 10% representation.
The meetings over the impact of the new local government system on the precarious political truce in the province come at a time of increasing tensions between the ANC and the IFP. One of the hallmarks of Mbeki’s presi-dency has been his desire to accommodate the IFP and the amakhosi, but the ANC is also anxious to make inroads into rural areas under the control of the amakhosi.
The two parties have recently traded insults over violence in the IFP stronghold of Nongoma, where the ANC has just launched a new branch.
The ANC issued a statement this week announcing that the launch was deliberately made to coincide with Freedom Day as its party supporters “were still not free to disclose their affiliation with the organisation”.