The Inkatha Freedom Party on Sunday suspended its national chairperson, Ziba Jiyane, at a national council meeting at Umhlanga Rocks, Durban.
In a statement, the party said it resolved to ”suspend Dr Jiyane as the party chairperson with immediate effect and refer the case to the party’s disciplinary committee and prohibit him from participating in any activities of the party pending the outcome of the disciplinary hearing.”
The IFP said Jiyane last week brought its name into disrepute by saying that the party was operating as ”an internal dictatorship”, thereby fuelling widespread perceptions of discord and divisions within the party.
The chairperson of the IFP Youth Brigade in KwaZulu-Natal, S’phamandla Ngcobo, was also suspended for holding a rally with its student wing, the South African Democratic Students’ Movement, in defiance of a party executive order not to do so.
It was at this rally that Jiyane made the statements that led to his suspension.
Ngcobo was prohibited from participating in any party activities pending the outcome of the disciplinary hearing.
The national council said Jiyane’s speech was ”universally regarded as a bid for the leadership of the party”.
It also criticised him for saying the IFP national council was an undemocratic body and not legally constituted, by pointing out that party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi was unanimously elected to serve a five-year term as president at last year’s annual general conference.
The national council said: ”Dr Jiyane’s remarks and disloyal behaviour make his continued participation in the life of the party untenable.”
The party resolved to ”condemn and censor” Jiyane’s remarks and called on all members with grievances ”to seek internal remedies without attacking the party in public”.
It also resolved to ”express confusion and bewilderment that Dr Jiyane has chaired the national council, which he describes as not being legally constituted, over the last 12 months”.
It called on Jiyane to explain publicly ”this disjuncture in his conduct and to stop posturing behind convoluted semantics and state his intentions honestly”.
The national council on Sunday also expressed its full support for Buthelezi, saying he ”provides a class of leadership which is without parallel in South Africa”. — Sapa