The body of United Independent Front (UIF) leader Malizolo Diko had barely grown cold when his party colleagues were at one another’s throats over who should succeed him.
UIF national executive committee member Mzwandile Manjiya has approached the Cape High Court in a bid to stop anyone being appointed to Diko’s parliamentary seat, vacant since his death. It is one of two occupied by this political juggernaut, which hived off from the United Democratic Movement just before the floor-crossing period last September.
Manjiya claimed the party’s acting president, Ike Kekana, had threatened UIF members during an national executive council meeting in Pretoria, saying ”he was going to fetch his AK-47 to deal with us”.
Neville Hendricks, the party’s only representative in the National Council of Provinces, is challenging Kekana, and has declared himself UIF interim president.
Party spokesperson Mabandla Gogo said both Manjiya and Hendricks would face party disciplinary measures, insisting that Kekana was now the acting UIF leader.
And in KwaZulu-Natal, another splinter movement is splintering further after the death of a parliamentary representative.
The National Democratic Convention (Nadeco), founded by former Inkatha Freedom Party chairperson Ziba Jiyane in the hope of luring disaffected members of the IFP, has asked the overtaxed judiciary to resolve various internal squabbles, including finding a replacement for deceased MP John Aulsebrook.
Jiyane said the matter, marked by court challenges and counter-challenges, had degenerated into a ”circus” that only a federal conference, scheduled for September 23, could unravel.
”We have a problem of leaders that were not elected, yet we call ourselves a democratic party,” he said. ”There is now a stalemate and we cannot resolve the matter by consensus, as we agreed when we started the party.”
Jiyane said the high court judge asked to adjudicate on Aulesbrook’s vacant seat had told Nadeco ”he was not into running a political party” and advised party leaders to call a conference to resolve the infighting.
Jiyane, a businessman who owns Masithembe Bus Services, said the rumpus at Nadeco has made him realise that his return to politics ”was not worth it. But I am hanging around for the sake of those who trust in me.”