In a further sign of the widening gap between the Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress, a senior IFP official has cast aspersions on the capacity of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) to improve governance in Africa.
Citing Nepad as an issue for discussion at the party’s coming national conference, Albert Mncwango, the IFP’s national organiser, asked: “When did Libya last have elections?
“Look at the manner in which Zimbabwe is being run.”
Libya and Zimbabwe are signatories to Nepad, which is ANC president Thabo Mbeki’s brainchild.
Mncwango said Nepad’s success would be determined by how Africa faced the challenges of conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.
The IFP has in the past differed with the ANC on its handling of the Zimbabwean crisis.
Mncwango said the IFP otherwise welcomed the Nepad initiative and the formation of the African Union.
He said the future of the coalition between the IFP and the ANC, though not on the conference’s agenda, was bound to crop up, though the political course the IFP is likely to follow in the near future will be decided at the meeting.
The IFP has adopted a wait-and-see approach to relations with the ANC, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, pending the outcome of the Constitutional Court case next month on the floor-crossing legislation.
Two IFP members of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature defected to the ANC last month, swinging the balance of power in the province. The parties have since been embroiled in a heated exchange of words. Each has challenged the other to break the partnership established after the 1999 general election.
The provincial coalition cabinet has not met since last month. Mncwango acknowledged that relations between the two parties in province were at their “lowest ebb”.
The conference agenda will also include the IFP’s 2004 election campaign, the impact of its governance in KwaZulu-Natal and the HIV/Aids pandemic.