In a bid to promote Jacob Zuma, his key backers in KwaZulu-Natal have sparked a potentially counter-productive war with members of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and its leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
Ironically, the move could dilute Zuma’s support in rural KwaZulu-Natal, and among IFP members who sympathise with his battle for the African National Congress (ANC) presidency. They perceive his legal woes as stemming from a political conspiracy to stymie his presidential ambitions because he is a Zulu.
At the heart of the row are moves by leaders of the ANC’s Durban region, the centre of Zuma’s support, to rename Umlazi’s Mangosuthu Highway and the Mangosuthu Technikon.
They want them named after Zuma’s close friend and political associate in exile, communist leader Moses Mabhida, who died in Maputo in 1986.
At Mabhida’s reburial in Pietermaritzburg in January, President Thabo Mbeki was heckled by a group of Zuma supporters, who then staged a walkout known to have been organised by the ANC’s Durban leadership.
Zuma’s Durban supporters, led by KwaZulu-Natal minister of safety and security Bheki Cele, ANC provincial secretary Senzo Mchunu and eThekwini ANC regional secretary John Mchunu, have successfully lobbied the eThekwini metro to rename Durban’s 2010 World Cup stadium the King Senzangakhona Soccer Stadium, after Mabhida.
Buthelezi hit back fiercely this week, warning in his weekly online letter that the name-change advocates were tampering with the fragile peace between ANC and IFP supporters in once war-torn Umlazi and could reopen old wounds.
He accused eThekwini mayor Obed Mlaba, a member of the board of governors at Mangosuthu Technikon, of leading a campaign to rename the institution.
Buthelezi pointed out that the construction of the technikon, with funds from Harry Oppenheimer and Anglo American, had been the fruit of his fund-raising efforts. While acknowledging Mabhida’s contribution to the struggle, Buthelezi argued that he had made a more meaningful and lasting contribution to the well-being of Umlazi and its people.
”As many residents will recall, Umlazi was built on traditional land that belonged to the Cele clan. The negotiations for its release were piloted by me. Furthermore, my launch of property rights, for women and widows in particular, was launched in Umlazi. This was not the most popular idea at the time,” he said.
Buthelezi cautioned that a ”new name for the Mangosuthu Highway could reopen the many old wounds in KwaZulu-Natal, which we have striven to heal for many years”.
The leader of the IFP caucus in the eThekwini metro, Thembi Nzuza, said the party had scheduled the ”mother of all marches” in Durban in two weeks’ time to object to the proposal.
”As for Mangosuthu Technikon, we are saying they will change it over our dead bodies. We will fight until we lose all our limbs to defend Shenge’s [Buthelezi] legacy, because everyone knows that the construction of the technikon was the result of Shenge’s efforts.” Nzuza said the party viewed the initiative as ”an insult to the IFP, to Shenge and his legacy”.
She said the IFP was considering joining forces with the DA in a court challenge ”to oppose the efforts by the ANC to rewrite history and undermine the contributions of leaders who are not aligned to the ANC”.
”We believe these names are just imposed on communities without proper consultation. They cannot explain what contribution Mabhida made to improve the lives of the people of Umlazi,” Nzuza said.
Zuma, who projects himself as Mabhida’s protégé and the sole custodian of his legacy, is known to have complained in the past that there is no structure in South Africa named in recognition of Mabhida’s contribution to the liberation struggle.
The proposed name for the highway flies in the face of popular sentiment that it be named after the late United Democratic Front stalwart Victoria Mxenge, an Umlazi-based civil rights lawyer murdered by apartheid security force agents in 1985.
An ANC activist living in the township said: ”The people of Umlazi have been calling this road Mxenge highway since time immemorial.”
The irony is that the zealous moves by his supporters could weaken Zuma in his KwaZulu-Natal stronghold. With a rural base in the IFP-controlled area of Nkandla in northern KwaZulu-Natal, he is by far the most popular ANC leader among IFP supporters.
Rural people in the province, most of them IFP supporters who have no political interest in the succession battle in the ruling party, see Zuma as a new vehicle for Zulu traditionalism.
Many Zulus who once channelled their aspirations through Buthelezi have switched allegiance since Zuma’s dismissal from the Cabinet in 2004. Since then they have been casting about for a capable leader who is deeply rooted in Zulu traditionalism to maintain KwaZulu-Natal’s influence in the national discourse.
The renaming of the technikon lies in the hands of its board of governors.
However, the ANC-dominated Durban metro council has the power to rename the highway by a simple majority vote.