The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has won a clever game of political chess with the African National Congress (ANC) over which party has the right the govern the province of KwaZulu-Natal. It has also wrung a key concession from the national ruling party.
While the African National Congress in the run-up to today’s meeting of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature — scheduled to have passed a vote of dissolution of the legislature to force a provincial election with the help of the Democratic Alliance (DA) — called IFP tactics to force an early provincial election a move to return the province to Bantustan status. Today, ANC national representative Smuts Ngonyama opened the door to a compromise and that compromise was accepted.
Dumisani Makhaye, one of two provincial ANC ministers replaced by IFP Premier Lionel Mtshali with two DA members recently, accused both parties of trying to reimpose a Bantustan — an apartheid homeland — in KwaZulu-Natal by forcing the election.
Makhaye said this attempt would be resisted by the ANC. He further said that the ANC viewed the dissolution of the legislature as precipitating “ungovernability” of the province.
Then just before the planned crucial vote of the legislature this morning, Ngonyama said there was a need “to come up with a concession to avert the pending crisis”.
While this was necessitated by the “unprecedented” action by the IFP premier, he noted that the IFP focus of compromise was on defection legislation. Asked if legislation allowing for retrospective floor-crossing at provincial and national level would be suspended, he said it was “difficult for us to say the Bill must be suspended”.
“However we hear that the IFP is stressing the importance of the retrospective aspect of the Bill. It is an issue which perhaps we can listen to… we can listen constructively to them”.
What he knew at the time was that Deputy President Jacob Zuma had already written a letter to IFP leader (and Home Affairs Minister) Mangosuthu Buthelezi indicating that the retrospective clause would be dropped from pending legislation by Justice Minister Penuell Maduna.
The IFP national council, which met in Durban on Tuesday night, was apprised of the contents of the letter — which had apparently been sent with the approval of President Thabo Mbeki — to Buthelezi. The council then agreed that Mtshali would announce the adjournment of the legislature and a vote of dissolution would not be taken today.
However, if the ANC did not carry out this pledge the legislature would be called together again to dissolve itself — and force an election. The IFP is particularly irked by the fact that five defectors — two from its own ranks, two from the DA and one from the UDM — were to have received protection and reinstatement in terms of the legislation.
By agreeing to remove the clause the ANC now has less of a chance of winning Kwazulu-Natal through this legislative intervention. It may do so if existing members of the 80 member legislature choose to join it after the legislation is passed by the national assembly — but it won’t be with the help of the five former legislature members.
The IFP has won round one. The next round will focus on whether the ANC carries out its promise. The IFP has been told by the ANC that its national executive committee would consider the proposal to drop the offending clause.
The IFP has repeatedly won chess games with the ANC. In 1994 it held out until the last minute and refused to participate in the first non-racial elections — until it had succeeded in winning a pledge of international mediation to resolve differences over provincial powers and the role of traditional leaders.
The international mediation agreement was never carried out by the ANC although its promise had brought the IFP into the election.
IFP insiders say that they were not frightened of an election in the province. In the last municipal election the IFP gained nearly 48% of the vote — up from 40,5% in the provincial election in 1999. The DA believed it too could count on increased support — with opposition-inclined voters likely to move away from the New National Party (NNP) which has gone into a political alliance with the ANC.
In addition KwaZulu-Natal has historically bucked national political trends — voting against the prevailing political line of other areas of the country. In old style white politics it opposed the creation of the republic in 1960, it was one of the last provinces to fall to the National Party (NP) in the apartheid era.
Buthelezi himself, while participating in homeland politics, never accepted independence for his self-governing KwaZulu territory and created joint governing structures between black and white in the province – before the end of apartheid.
The IFP is also the largest black political party with the exception of the ANC and has demonstrated solid support in its powerbase, KwaZulu-Natal, through two national elections. – I-Net Bridge