Niki Moore
If the University of Zululand (Unizul) was a business, what happened there would be called a hostile takeover. Last Friday, Mangosutho Buthelezi was voted out as chancellor and Deputy President Jacob Zuma was voted in.
Friday’s meeting of the university council should have been a fairly mundane affair, to discuss various matters related to the faculty. One of these was the election of the new chancellor a mere formality as Buthelezi has never been opposed before.
“Unizul is, after all, in the heartland of Inkatha Freedom Party territory and things on campus were already volatile enough,” said a member of the Unizul council who asked not to be named.
However, Zuma accepted his nomination and was elected by a margin of 15 votes to 12.
The shock waves were enormous and immediate. Unizul historian Albert van Jaarsveld said: “It came as a complete shock. I mean, Buthelezi has been chancellor for 21 years. To find that he has been replaced is like the end of an era.”
The past 10 years have been turbulent ones for the university, plagued with infighting, corruption scandals and crippling student debt.
In 1994 Charles Dlamini was rector of the university. He is an expert on constitutional law. He is also bound by tribal loyalties to Buthelezi, who is his clan chieftain.
Although Dlamini did not have overt political sympathies, his blood ties to Buthelezi made him a personal sympathiser with the Inkatha chief.
“Under Dlamini the university council was reasonably efficient, although plagued by allegations of corruption and lack of discipline,” said a university source. “After 1994, however, a cabal arose within the council to discredit Dlamini. Businessman Keith Kunene was elected as chairperson of the council and he began a campaign to discredit the rector.
“Students and administrators were encouraged to report allegations of mismanagement and corruption directly to the council. Dlamini would then be confronted with these allegations in council meetings. Some of them were little more than rumour and speculation.”
Kunene had been brought in, said the council, to “clean up” the university. But Dlamini described the appointment as a “constructive dismissal”.
Dlamini tried to resign in 1998, but was persuaded to stay by the council. Unfortunately, several scandals on the campus gave his detractors much ammunition.
In 1996 history professor Jabulani Mapalala was charged with fraudulently passing students who had failed their exams. He took a retrenchment package shortly before his misconduct hearing began.
In 1997 10 staff members were accused of selling degrees. A forensic audit revealed widespread complicity among staff and many were demoted or dismissed.
In 1998 the council suspended all the senior staff in the finance department for five months following allegations of fraud. A forensic audit revealed nothing and they were reappointed.
And last year Kunene’s clean-up campaign became seriously compromised when the former chair of the Central Energy Fund was accused of accepting cash bribes in offshore kickbacks to arrange a secret oil deal with an international trading company.
He was forced to resign as chairperson of the Unizul council. His replacement, Dr IB Mkhize, an African National Congress-aligned public servant from Mpumalanga, was also elected at last Friday’s meeting.
The position of university chancellor is symbolic decisions are made by the council. The new council chair stressed that the change from Buthelezi to Zuma was not a political decision. “This must in no way be seen as a political issue,” said Mkhize. “This does not to my mind mean that the council regards Buthe-lezi, who has done great work for the university, as being incompetent.”
But university staffers are concerned that Zuma will not be content to play a symbolic role. “This is just the beginning,” said the senior staffer. “I can almost guarantee that Dlamini will be the next to go. Even though he is supposed to be apolitical, his loyalties to Buthelezi are just too strong.”
For Zuma, Unizul is home turf. His family hails from nearby Nkandla. His daughter is deputy head girl at St Catherine school in Empangeni. He has two sons at the university.
On being notified of his appointment, he said: “I see no reason to turn this into a political issue. Universities have always appointed various high-profile figures as chancellors and I want to view this in the same light.
“I see it as an honour to follow in the footsteps of Dr Buthelezi and I have high regard for the role that he has played as chancellor in the past.”