The African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party are unlikely to win a clear majority on their own in next year’s general election. Both parties, against the will of many of their members, will have to start negotiating with each other.
It would be ideal if both parties attempted to win an outright majority, but that is an unlikely scenario.
Almost four years after the 1999 election the squabbling between the IFP and the ANC continues. Despite attempts at national level to project relations between the two parties as hunky-dory the reality is quite different.
Citizens have lost interest and the coalition is patently not working. The ANC will find it difficult to take control of rural KwaZulu-Natal, particularly to the north of the Tugela river, in the 2004 election. Irritated urban voters may even decide to settle for the minority parties next year.
The leadership of both parties will have to find a way to end the incessant fighting between them. The ANC would be happy to secure four provincial cabinet positions: the two that were withdrawn and the two posts that were promised in the talks that preceded the 1999 election.
The ball is in the IFP’s court, but the party is divided. If it reinstates the ANC as an equal provincial partner, it risks its burgeoning relationship with the Democratic Alliance.
And the IFP is relying on the DA to increase its urban strength in the next election. The IFP could, with the DA, have a shot at gaining total control of KwaZulu-Natal. But the ruling party’s leadership knows this: the more it squeezes the IFP into a corner, the deeper it will sink into the DA arms.
It’s an alliance that is not supported by all in the IFP. There is a body of opinion that supports coalition with the ruling party. After each fight they make up, with the explanation that black parties must stick together.
This reason has superseded two key stumbling blocks in the relationship: the IFP’s failure to appoint two more ANC MPLs and the ANC’s failure to entrench extensive traditional leader rights in the local government system.
Ultimately, the decision about what the IFP will do rests with Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Last week he said he had no intention of quitting the national Cabinet, even while an ANC takeover of the province loomed large. His position lends power to other accommodationists in the IFP.
It is understood that Premier Lionel Mtshali is losing favour with IFP MPLs. Even hardliners such as MEC for Social Welfare Gideon Zulu are believed to be holding him responsible for former MEC for education Gabriel Ndabandaba’s defection to the ANC. Ndabandaba left complaining of Mtshali’s high-handedness.
At the time of writing, the on-again-off-again coalition looked set to survive another turbulent moment in its short history. And KwaZulu-Natal citizens will have learn to live with it.