The Inkatha Freedom Party on Sunday urged its members to vote in great numbers in the coming municipal elections to increase the party’s councillors as well as municipalities to govern.
”The strength of the IFP is in its members. The IFP will not win the elections if you don’t vote,” Zanele Magwaza, the IFP’s national chairperson, told crowds at an IFP rally in Soweto.
”It is our responsibility to go to all the municipalities to strengthen the party so that in the next local government elections, we can increase our councillors and regain the municipalities we lost.
”United, we stand. Divided, we fall. I urge all of you to vote for the IFP on election day,” Magwaza, who was flanked by bodyguards during her speech, said to loud applause.
The rally, largely attended by IFP members clad in the party’s regalia, was held at the Jabulani Amphitheatre in Soweto.
Before the start of the rally, the party’s amabutho (warriors) chanted and danced. Some wore T-shirts that said the IFP was strong.
Thulasizwe Buthelezi, the leader of the IFP Youth Brigade, IFP MPs and councillors attended the meeting.
Victor Dlamini, a pastor who opened the rally, said to the crowd: ”If you were praying before, pray twice this time [before the local government elections start].”
Magwaza, who is also Zululand district municipality’s mayor, said the IFP is currently governing 41 out of the 61 municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.
”If you don’t vote, you’re not helping the IFP in any way. On election day, all of you must go and vote, and vote for the IFP,” she said.
Commenting on Ziba Jiyane, Magwaza’s predecessor and leader of the newly formed National Democratic Convention (Nadeco), she said Jiyane’s party is not a threat to the IFP.
”There are leaders of Nadeco who say Nadeco is the child of the IFP. That is not the case. I was warning our people to guard against that,” she said in an impromptu interview with reporters.
She said ”any reasonable person” should be careful of Jiyane, who had left the party three times before — in 1978, 1995 and 2005.
”He might surprise them. He might leave them as well.”
Jiyane was very popular and respected among the youth in the IFP, which made him think that he could do anything he wanted, Magwaza said.
Every time Magwaza referred to Jiyane during her speech to the crowd, the people replied: ”Asim’funi! Makahambe! [We don’t want him! Let him go!]” — Sapa