The Inkatha Freedom Party has relocated to Parliament three KwaZulu-Natal legislature members — including feared former “warlord” Thomas Shabalala — in an apparent move to pre-empt their defection to other parties.
Shabalala, who lords over the Lindelani squatter camp outside Durban, initially resisted the transfer but was threatened with expulsion from the party by the IFP national council, insiders said. He had previously been regarded as an IFP stalwart.
Suspicion has hovered over the other two members, Theresa Millin and Christopher Ngiba, who have also been sent packing to Parliament. There are strong rumours that Millin will cross to the African Christian Democratic Party when national and provincial party defections are permitted by a new law expected on the statute book by the end of the month.
The transfers indicate that the IFP is taking every precaution to prevent further defections to the African National Congress that may give the ANC control of KwaZulu-Natal.
The balance in the legislature is precarious, with the IFP holding 34 seats and its new partner, the Democratic Alliance, seven. The ANC can muster 32 seats of its own and two each of the New National Party and the Minority Front.
IFP members said that after the three were told of the party’s decision at a national council two weeks ago, Millin and Ngiba agreed but Shabalala refused to go to Cape Town. He was hauled before a disciplinary hearing at a national council meeting last week and told that if he baulked at the decision he would be expelled. He has since bowed the knee.
IFP spokesperson Blessed Gwala said Shabalala had expressed concerns about the security of his home in Lindelani in his absence from the province, which is why he was given a special hearing at the national council.
He said: “The national council then assured him that they would speak to the appropriate authorities to ensure that security is maintained around his home.”
Gwala denied the transfer of the three members of the provincial legislature was related to the defection legislation. He described the transfer as a “part of the process within the IFP to expose members to the workings of the Parliament”.
Shabalala also denied his transfer was linked to the defection legislation, saying he was “happy” to be deployed to Cape Town.
IFP members said Shabalala had been regarded with suspicion in the party since he successfully challenged his expulsion from the IFP in 1996. He was expelled for leading an armed march in Durban despite a government ban on traditional weapons. Shabalala was reinstated as an MPL in 1998, when a court ruled that his expulsion was “flawed”.
He struck fear into the hearts of ANC and United Democratic Front supporters in the mid-1980s. He has been accused of murder but never convicted.
Ngiba, chairperson of the KwaZulu-Natal Taxi Council, is considered to be close to the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal chairperson, S’bu Ndebele. The two have cooperated closely in tackling taxi violence.
Millin was removed as the party’s deputy chief whip in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature last year after her husband made uncomplimentary remarks about the IFP to the media.
IFP national chairperson and KwaZulu-Natal Premier Lionel Mtshali has warned that the country is facing a “downhill walk towards a one-party state, in which one centre of power will control the whole of society”.
In another development highlighting tense IFP-ANC relations, Mtshali declared in the second week of March that the vibrancy of South Africa’s democracy was being stifled and the country needed to engage in “a new struggle for freedom”.
In a hard-hitting speech at the DA’s Gauteng provincial congress in Krugersdorp, Mtshali said decision-making power was concentrated in a few centres. The country was at a crossroads and it was up to the IFP and the DA to ensure that South Africa walked the “hard path towards a genuinely free and open society blessed by democracy and pluralism”.
Referring to the DA’s inclusion in the provincial government, Mtshali said KwaZulu-Natal “has become the battlefield on which the forces of democracy are challenging those which are busy consolidating one-party domination and an embryonic one-party state”.
He lauded IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and the DA’s Tony Leon for their “gift of political clairvoyance” and for pursuing dreams with pragmatism when South Africa was “suffering from a major leadership crisis”.