The Inkatha Freedom Party’s decision to fire two African National Congress members of the KwaZulu-Natal cabinet — and risk an ANC tit-for-tat in the national Cabinet — was based on the calculation that its ruling coalition with the ANC will not survive beyond 2004.
KwaZulu-Natal premier and IFP national chairperson Lionel Mtshali fired ANC members Dumi-sani Makhaye and Mike Mabuyakhulu as provincial ministers of housing and economics respectively.
The move, which shocked even some IFP members, had apparently been under discussion among the IFP’s top echelons for two months.
Particularly galling to the ANC was the fact that Makhaye and Mabuyakhulu were replaced by the Democratic Alliance’s Roger Burrows and Wilson Ngcobo.
The IFP is unlikely to retract. On Thursday IFP spokesperson Musa Zondi said Mtshali’s decision was endorsed by the party’s national council.
“We do not pursue one-off shifts of policy … we are ready to bear the consequences of any principled action we take,” Zondi said.
“The premier of KwaZulu-Natal is the national chair of the IFP, and expresses through his actions the ethos and pathos of our party.”
A senior IFP national council member confirmed that the party was not likely to reinstate the ANC ministers.
He said: “We anticipated that the IFP was unlikely to be invited by the ANC to be part of the coalition arrangement in 2004.”
The council member said it was decided that with only a year to go before the 2004 elections, the IFP should consolidate its relationship with the DA.
He said: “We are not going to be in the DA’s pocket as many people believe. If the ANC can forge an alliance with the right-wing New National Party, we are also free to form our own relationships.”
Questioned on what IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi would do if he was pushed out as Minister of Home Affairs, the member said that the IFP was trying to forge a role for the opposition in the country and that Buthelezi was prepared to lead the parliamentary opposition after the 2004 election.
The IFP shares a coalition arrangement with the ANC in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive and in the national Cabinet. The deal was struck after the 1994 elections in the interest of KwaZulu-Natal’s stability.
A senior ANC delegation led by President Thabo Mbeki this week asked senior IFP members, including Buthelezi, to reconsider the decision to fire the two MECs.
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said the IFP was reminded of the decisions taken at their respective party conferences in 1997 and 1998 endorsing the coalition.
Ngonyama insisted the IFP was not threatened with any reprisals — “it did not come to that”. Ngonyama said that during the talks the IFP had recommitted itself to the coalition arrangement.
Zondi, who also attended the meeting, said the IFP told ANC leaders it would take the matter to its national council on December 13 and 14.
Most senior IFP members feel that the national council will endorse Mtshali’s decision. A senior IFP member said Mtshali had not taken the decision “overnight — it was being discussed for the past two months”.
The catalyst was the growing strain in the coalition arrangement between the two parties, said the IFP national council member.
Among these was the recent ANC-backed legislation to allow defections in the provincial and national tiers of government, which had enabled two IFP members of the legislature to join the ANC.
Statements by the ANC KwaZulu- Natal leader S’bu Ndebele saying the ANC would soon take control of the province, and the ANC-backed decision to move the seat of the provincial legislature permanently to Ulundi, had also infuriated IFP leaders.