The Inkatha Freedom Party leadership has suspended two senior members of its youth wing who have challenged the party’s constitution by allegedly demanding that the new chairperson of the IFP Youth Brigade be democratically elected instead of appointed by party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Lucky Mthethwa, the brigade’s national secretary, and Sibusiso Msweli, president of the IFP-linked student movement, the South African Democratic Students Movement, were suspended on the eve of the party’s youth conference in Ulundi last weekend.
Addressing the conference, Buthelezi spoke of ”mischief-makers” who were intent on splitting the party on the lines of age. He said that the two were ”bent on causing havoc” at the conference by forcing the party to hold fresh elections.
The position of youth brigade chairperson became vacant a few days before the conference when Sibusisiwe Ngubane resigned.
”I decided that I wanted to concentrate on my law studies and I felt that I didn’t have time to do justice to my position in the brigade,” she said, insisting that her resignation had nothing to do with ”pressure from the top”.
Following her departure, Buthelezi and the party’s national council appointed her deputy, Thulasizwe Buthelezi, as acting chairperson until the next elective conference in 2006. According to the party’s constitution, the president appoints the chairperson and the deputy chairperson of the brigade while the rest of the leadership are voted in by the members at an elective conference.
”Every organisation has to abide by its constitution and every member is bound by that. The minute we have members riding roughshod over the constitution, no matter how valid their points are, they become illegitimate,” said Thulasizwe Buthelezi.
Party members are tight-lipped about the exact reasons for the suspension of Mthethwa and Msweli because their disciplinary hearing is not yet under way.
Msweli said he couldn’t comment until he had received the dates for the hearing. ”We have basically been accused of mobilising people to appoint a new national executive committee — that’s all that I can say,” he said.
Mthethwa could also not confirm the exact position.
IFP secretary general Musa Zondi said that he had been asked to convene the disciplinary hearings but said he couldn’t comment on behalf of the party because ”it is a youth brigade matter”. He added that the dates for the hearings had not yet been set.
The IFP Youth Brigade was formed in 1978 and has about 700 000 members countrywide, according to its organiser, Phullani Khuzwayo.
The South African Democratic Students Movement was formed in 1990 and has 5 000 members.
In the past year IFP youth have rebelled against the established leadership of the party, which suffered a serious setback in the April election when it lost its stronghold, KwaZulu-Natal, to the ANC.
At the IFP’s annual conference in July this year, the youth showed their determination to replace leaders who are not able to secure a role for their party in South African politics by dislodging national chairperson Lionel Mtshali, seen as a traditionalist, and replacing him with Ziba Jiyane, regarded as a modernist.
One of the resolutions adopted at the conference at the weekend is to conduct an audit into the performance of all of our public representatives in parliament, the provincial legislature and local government.
”We will have some run-ins with members of the top leadership but we intend to carry out this resolution to the last letter. This includes the president of the IFP,” said Thulasizwe Buthelezi.