Cruel setback for ANC’s Ndebele

The African National Congress’s climbdown on the floor-crossing law this week — in the face of a threat to dissolve the KwaZulu-Natal legislature and stage a provincial election — came as a devastating blow to the party’s provincial leader, S’bu Ndebele.

Ndebele insisted he was happy with the deal between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party, under which a motion to dissolve the KwaZulu-Natal parliament was dropped by the IFP in return for the scrapping of a controversial ‘retrospectivity” clause in the Bill.

The clause would have reinstated five legislature members who lost their seats after defecting prematurely to the ANC last June. Their defection would have given the ANC control of the KwaZulu-Natal government.

‘We have managed to avert a crisis,” Ndebele said. ‘If the legislature had been dissolved there is no law that would have allowed the elections to have taken place. We said we will also go ahead with the defection legislation. We are going ahead.”

However, senior ANC members say Ndebele’s position has been seriously weakened by the failure of his plan to take over the province — and the premiership, which he is known to covet. They said there had been growing anger in Luthuli House, the ANC’s national headquarters, over the manner in which he had dealt with the floor-crossing legislation.

The ANC’s national leadership is understood to have overruled Ndebele, who is said to have insisted on the original inclusion of the retrospectivity clause in the Bill and wanted it retained.

He also took no part in the negotiations between the ANC and IFP, which insiders said was ‘a vote of no confidence in him”.

Senior leaders said he was, however, kept informed of developments in the five days of intense talks between the parties, fronted by Deputy President Jacob Zuma for the ANC and IFP high-up Celani Mtetwa.

In his opening address in the legislature on Wednesday IFP provincial Premier Lionel Mtshali humiliatingly highlighted the ANC’s now-junior role in the provincial government. Mtshali fired two ANC MECs, and replaced them with Democratic Alliance members, last month.

Mtshali told MPLs he had decided not to proceed with the motion to dissolve after consulting his ‘colleague”, DA provincial leader and newly appointed MEC for Economics Roger Burrows. Ndebele, MEC for Transport, was not consulted.

DA and United Democratic Movement support was critical to the majority needed by the IFP to dissolve the legislature. Opposition sources believe the ANC climbdown was heavily influenced by its desire not to strengthen the burgeoning relationship between the IFP and the DA.

In his legislature speech, Ndebele tried to put a brave face on the setback, saying he had suggested to his national leadership at the ANC’s national conference in Stellenbosch in December that they drop the defection legislation in its entirety.

IFP national spokesperson Musa Zondi shot back: ‘If that was the case, why were we in the legislature today?”

As the only ANC member to address the legislature, Ndebele seemed isolated within his own party during the debate. Four senior IFP members participated.

At a subsequent media conference, Mtshali insisted he would not reinstate the dismissed ANC MECs, Dumisani Makhaye and Mike Mabuyakhulu, as it was a ‘principled action” and he could not ‘respond to whims and fancies”.

This is the second time Ndebele has tried, and failed, to wangle ANC control of KwaZulu-Natal. After the 1999 election, where the Inkatha Freedom Party polled most votes, he is said to have proposed that IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi should be offered the deputy presidency of the country in return for surrendering the provincial premiership.

Under pressure from within his party, Buthelezi rejected the offer. Ndebele’s suggestion is believed to have angered many senior ANC leaders.

Ndebele’s orginal announcement in June, that the ANC would take control of the province after the floor-crossing legislation came into effect, apparently did not go down well with party leaders. In a move to maintain peace and stability in the province, the ANC has been part of the IFP-led coalition government that runs KwaZulu-Natal since 1994.

Party insiders say those unhappy with him include Zuma and ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe. However, they say he is likely to survive because of his close ties with President Thabo Mbeki.

The IFP’s problems with provincial ANC leaders were highlighted this week in a letter by Buthelezi to Zuma. In this, the IFP leader claimed former president Nelson Mandela had told him of attempts to hold meetings with IFP leaders in violence-torn areas that had been ‘frustrated by the Midlands ANC leadership”.

Zondi described relations between the two parties in KwaZulu-Natal as ‘still bad”. After the sitting both sides were bristling, with ANC provincial hardliner Dumisani Makhaye declaring that a ‘lifeline” had been offered to the IFP, as the party would never have been able to hold elections.

During Mtshali’s speech earlier in the house, Makhaye performed a mocking jig in time to the premier’s words.

Mtshali hit back: ‘I was very taken aback by those who suggested that the holding of democratic elections in KwaZulu-Natal would throw the province into a crisis. Democracy is not a crisis. The real crisis springs out of those who fear both democracy and the will of the people of this province.”

The national ANC was far more conciliatory. In a statement responding to the settlement, Mbeki said: ‘We are confident that the spirit demonstrated by the IFP today will continue to guide us each time we face tactical problems, and as we address other outstanding issues. We remain committed to the strengthening of the working relationship with the IFP.”

The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal expects more IFP members to join its fold if the new defection legislation comes into effect this year, which could set the political temperature in the province soaring once again. A senior ANC member said: ‘It is not really a victory for the IFP, they wanted the entire defection legislation scrapped. They will still lose members.”

The IFP also had to pacify its members on Tuesday night, many of whom wanted the leadership to reject the ANC offer and press ahead with elections. IFP members gathered outside the legislature on Wednesday morning in a tense Pietermaritzburg were already shouting election slogans.

Burrows said that while the cooperation between the two parties had graduated from municipal to provincial level, ‘it was premature” to speculate that they might enter an electoral pact for next year’s general election.

ANC provincial spokesperson Mtolephi Mthimkhulu denied that Ndebele or the provincial leadership had been marginalised: ‘It is a figment of people’s imagination. The ANC leadership continously consulted with the province throughout the negotiations.”