Inkatha Freedom Party members pledged their loyalty to the party and told a meeting held in Durban of alleged inducements to cross the floor offered to them by the African National Congress.
IFP insiders said that to evade the suspicions of the IFP leadership many members made exaggerated claims of positions and money offered to them by ANC leaders.
One insider said: ”Members even said they were born IFP and pronounced that God had given them the strength to die IFP!”
Some IFP members named the ANC members who had approached them, said one insider.
The IFP meeting took place on the Thursday before the window period allowing for defections closed.
The balance of power between the IFP and the ANC in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature is precarious.
IFP spokesperson Blessed Gwala said that the matter was not on the agenda of the national council meeting held on the Thursday. He said: ”If members chose to disclose that they had been approached, they did so of their own accord.”
The meeting came shortly after expectations had been built up in the ANC camp that two IFP members of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature were to cross the floor to sit in their ranks. On the other hand, ANC insiders revealed that an IFP member approached them offering his seat. His price was the post of ambassador
to India.
One ANC insider said: ”We did approach IFP members but did not offer any positions or money. At the most we might have assured them of a seat in the legislature next year.”
ANC spokesperson Mtholephi Mthimkhulu denied that the party had made any offers of positions or money to any member. He said: ”We are not a party of coercion or intimidation. We did not make our members sign pledges of loyalty or try to extract money from them to prevent them from defecting.”
One member of the legislature went around claiming he had been offered more than R300 000 in cash and a house to change his allegiance.