Do you expect President Thabo Mbeki to invite you to join his post-election Cabinet and will you make yourself available?
I would be a prophet to know if he will invite me. My place in government was prescribed by the Constitution until 1999, but I now serve at his pleasure. Whether I’m available will be decided by my party.
The December Human Sciences Research Council poll predicted the African National Congress would take KwaZulu-Natal in this election, with the Inkatha Freedom Party polling only 33% of the vote.
I’ve never operated on the basis of polls. In ’94 they predicted the ANC would be 2% to 3% ahead of us; in ’99 the ANC was also going to win. In ’94, when we entered the election seven days before polling, Joe Slovo said he thought I was more intelligent than to hope for success. Also, in the 2000 local elections we won some towns held by them. As to the outcome, I’m not a prophet.
Before the 1994 election the IFP had significant white support, which now seems to have evaporated. Why?
Only whites can answer that, but it seems to me it can only be based on racism. I’ve never disappointed them in any way, but like all human beings they have poor memories. In 1979 when Oliver Tambo urged us to join the armed struggle, we refused. If the Zulu nation had taken up arms, South Africa would have easily been in ashes.
Whites forget how I was vilified across the world because of my attitude to sanctions; I urged Lady [Margaret] Thatcher, Chancellor [Helmut] Kohl and President [George] Bush not to endorse the campaign for sanctions and disinvestment. I protected white interests — I don’t see what I’ve done for them to shift their support.
The IFP also seems to have largely disappeared outside KwaZulu-Natal. Is this not because non-Zulus see it as a Zulu party and associate it with violence?
We haven’t shrunk outside KwaZulu-Natal; in provinces like Mpumalanga we’ve grown. A book produced by the Independent Electoral Commission shows people throughout the country voted for us. We’ve always been a party of the poor; we don’t have the money other parties have to canvass support.
And we’ve never been a Zulu party; journalists like yourself spread that idea. I resisted pressure from Jimmy Kruger [apartheid minister of justice and prisons] to recruit ethnically: I pointed out that the National Party didn’t recruit whites on that basis. He said they’re all Teutonic. I asked: What about the Jews? Research by Fribourg University found we were multi-ethnic, but the Improper Interference Act prevented multi-ethnic politics.
As to violence, that’s also propaganda. The [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] found I committed human rights violations in my representative capacity, but not a single instance where I committed or ordered an act of violence myself. Desmond Tutu was always an activist of the ANC.
Who took up arms first? The ANC. When its front, the United Democratic Front, was launched, I issued a statement welcoming it; they said they would welcome any organisation except us. Look at their songs: “Buthelezi, we’re coming with our bazookas!” There was a lot of violence in the low-intensity civil war, but it was never orchestrated. There was counter-violence, pre-emptive violence. These things gain their own momentum.
How do you view political intolerance by IFP supporters during this election campaign, like the attempt to stop Mbeki speaking at Tugela Ferry and the hostel-dwellers who drove Jacob Zuma away?
That report about the president was a lie — Dr [Essop] Pahad told Cabinet it was false. I hear Mr Zuma came unannounced; it’s our culture that if you’re going somewhere you announce yourself. To say it was Inkatha was irresponsible. ANC people would have every reason to be angry if our members blocked the vice-president of the country.
There were incidents of intolerance, no-go areas, on both sides, but it’s always Inkatha you people project as violent. When I was in Lamontville in November a kombi of people wearing ANC T-shirts came aggressively looking for me; they tore the IFP T-shirt off an 89-year-old woman. In January people shot at the car of MP Tom Tshabalala, who was announcing our manifesto launch…
Why have so many senior IFP members — including Peter Miller, Ben Ngubane, Walter Felgate, Ziba Jiyane, Farouk Cassiem and Gabriel Ndabandaba — quit the party? Isn’t this a vote of no-confidence?
Let’s be scientific. Jiyane left to make money; he remains an IFP member. People leave the ANC and Inkatha all the time, it’s their democratic right. [This week] I received 30 former ANC members in Bulwer; the same thing happened in KwaMakutha, outside Durban.
Those people who left have no constituency. They were put in those positions by myself, they were given seniority by myself — I gave them these positions which the party needs. But they did not bring people to the IFP. Their skills will be lost, but in support terms they won’t make any difference.
In Parliament, you described your “Coalition for Change” with the Democratic Alliance as a “forced” alliance. Were you implying it is no more than a device to keep the ANC out of power in KwaZulu-Natal?
The ANC was squealing about the coalition, and I said they forced the situation on us by interfering with the Constitution — which they say is sacrosanct — purely for expedient reasons. They wanted a two-thirds majority in Parliament and to force out Lionel Mtshali as premier in KwaZulu-Natal. That’s what I meant.
We and the DA share values and principles; we’re both federalists, we share attitudes on how to deal with crime and HIV/Aids. We’ve always believed in the free market, while because of its allies, Cosatu and the Communist Party, the ANC is stuck in socialism. Several of our conferences in the past were addressed by Helen Suzman; [Frederik] Van Zyl Slabbert addressed joint meetings. It’s not as if the coalition is just opportunistic.
You project the IFP as a democratic bulwark against ANC centralism. But you also speak for traditional leaders who are not democratically elected and cannot be democratically removed.
In the country of the mother of parliaments, who is head of state? The queen. The House of Lords is also not elected. It’s a white concept that traditional leadership is undemocratic. We Africans have our way of getting consensus; traditional leaders will not pronounce judgement except on the basis of consensus. It’s not as if they’re just dictators.
What is your assessment of Mbeki and the ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal leader, S’bu Ndebele, particularly as regards the peace process in that province?
In 1999 President Mbeki and I set up the three-a-side to deal with acts of intolerance and killings, and it decided we should address joint rallies of the ANC and IFP. We did this in Thokoza [on the East Rand]. That was the first and last time. When [Nelson] Mandela was released he phoned to say he wanted to come and see me and the [Zulu] king about the violence. It never happened. He told some amakhosi the ANC “almost throttled him” when he raised the idea. A year later, a meeting of ANC and IFP delegations decided Mandela and I should address a joint rally in Pietermaritzburg. Then we learned Mandela wasn’t coming, and that Harry Gwala took a busload of ANC leaders to Johannesburg to say he shouldn’t come. There have been all these breaches of agreements, starting from the time of Mr Mandela — and some have happened under President Mbeki.
As for Ndebele, he and Mtshali cannot get along. But I have never seen a situation where ministers in a coalition attack the head of government the way Ndebele and ANC ministers, like Dumisani Makhaye, attack Mtshali. Makhaye, a member of the ANC’s national executive committee, publicly called him “a Hitler” and “the devil incarnate”. And you never see Ndebele do anything about it. No member of my national executive would do that to Mr Mbeki. I’ve never allowed any pipsqueak in my party to do that.
A number of IFP representatives crossed the floor to the ANC, while there was no movement the other way. Did this reflect their view of the IFP’s election prospects?
What did that have to do with the elections? They’re just opportunists who should not have been in my party in the first place. There have been traitors throughout the history of man; there’s nothing unique about them.