KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele’s purging of the two remaining IFP provincial ministers from his multi-party cabinet is, according to analysts, symptomatic of the decline of the party and could lead to its political oblivion.
On Wednesday, Ndebele reshuffled his cabinet, replacing the IFP’s Blessed Gwala (public works) and Nyanga Ngubane (social welfare and population development) with ANC MPLs Lydia Johnson and Meshack Radebe, who is chairperson of the chairman’s committee.
Ndebele also moved agriculture and environmental affairs provincial minister Gabriel Ndabandaba — whose inability to control his department had seen it overspend almost R100-million this year — to the position of deputy speaker in the legislature, recently vacated by Johnson. Ndabandaba was replaced by chief whip Mtholephi Mthimkulu.
Laurence Piper, a specialist on the IFP and a senior lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s school of politics in Pietermaritzburg, said the move meant the IFP ”had even less access to government” which, coupled with poor showings in electoral polls, generated the impression of a political party in ”steady but terminal decline, certainly since the last election, but arguably since 1996”.
”The IFP will not implode in the manner of the New National Party because it is rooted in a certain socio-political base, especially up north [in KZN] where traditional authority is strong, but it is shrinking and there is only one outcome,” said Piper.
”The fact that the premier of KZN felt able to shake up cabinet and reduce the IFP representation in KZN is because of the ANC’s assessment of the IFP’s power in the province. Whether it will improve government service delivery and development is a matter still to be tested, though,” said Paul Graham, executive director of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.
Graham said the IFP’s inability to deal with pressures, including dwindling support in urban areas where it had previously featured prominently, generational changes in voter patterns, urbanisation and the inability to grow support in Gauteng, gave the impression of a party with a largely provincial base.
Electorally, the IFP has been in decline: in last year’s national elections the party won 7% of the vote and 28 parliamentary seats, a decline from 8,9% of the vote and 37 parliamentary seats in 1999 and its high in 1994, when it won 10,5% of the vote and 43 seats in Parliament. Piper warned that ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma’s emerging popularity, especially in areas traditionally tied to the IFP, could hasten the process of political decline: ”I think [he is a threat to the IFP], especially if he becomes the next leader of the ANC — it would be another reason to join the ANC. His discourse resonates with rural people and he is popular in IFP quarters.”
IFP Youth Brigade national chairperson Thulasizwe Buthelezi remained bullish, however: ”The IFP already governs 35 out of 61 municipalities and next week we will be governing 36. Our absence in provincial government therefore will not derail us from being the voice of the majority in KZN. Instead, our superior position at local government level will add renewed impetus to our new role as a fully-fledged opposition prepared to govern in 2009.”
This view was reiterated by IFP secretary general Reverend Musa Zondi: ”We have been expecting this, even as far back as 2004. Our position has always been that since we were invited by the ANC and the premier to participate in what they called a ‘broad-based’ ANC-led government it was the prerogative of the ANC and the premier to tell the IFP MECs that they have overstayed their welcome.”
On whether the IFP could provide a relevant opposition to the ANC, Graham said: ”It still has a constituency and articulate spokespeople, but it will require changes in how the party is managed. Being the opposition is not easy — it requires mobilising support from researchers; your representatives have to be informed on issues — and if you’ve been in power, as the IFP has, since the 1970s, it is a stretch, but it can be done. It has been done at times at national level, so why not in KZN?”
Ndebele’s move means that this is the first time since 1994 that the two parties have not been in provincial government together. Ndebele said the decision was taken after the IFP cooperated with smaller parties such as Nadeco and the DA to wrest control of several municipalities from the ANC, making their cooperation at provincial level untenable. Recently the ANC lost the Ndwedwe municipality and the Amajuba district municipality to the IFP/Nadeco/DA coalitions.
”During the two years of my premiership our two parties have engaged in bilateral meetings towards creating a government in which the ANC and the IFP, two parties deriving support from the majority of our people, would work with each other instead of ganging up against each other. But the relentless action of undermining and distorting the democratic mandate at local government level by the IFP has left me as premier and leader of the party … with no option,” said Ndebele.