An IFP supporter in the making attends an IFP rally in Johannesburg. Photograph: Lisa Skinner
The election fodder was wheeled out for a photo-opportunity at the Inkatha Freedom Party’s offices in downtown Durban this week.
Defectors from the ANC, according to IFP spin — although the 30-odd people included past supporters of the DA and the United Democratic Movement and they were paraded before the media in party T-shirts.
IFP national chairperson, Zanele Magwaza-Msibi described the turnout as ”a microcosm of a groundswell of support” turning towards the IFP, ”irrefutable evidence” that people in KwaZulu-Natal and the country had grown tired of the ANC government and this was a ”very, very powerful and humiliating” message to the ruling party as next year’s general election draw closer.
None were high-ranking ANC members. They were disgruntled and marginalised poor people — mainly urban.
”We feel the IFP is listening to us. For the past eight years I’ve been going to the ANC and DA offices and they don’t listen. If the IFP give us a little bit of hope, that’s all we want,” said Zuleka Bappu (31).
Bappu, who lives in the former Indian township of Phoenix, said her main struggle is housing: a single, unemployed mother with two children, she lives with 11 other people in a three-bedroom house.
Insisting that the IFP ”cares”, she said a party leader had advised her of her rental rights, staving off eviction.
She and two other unemployed women pawned a cellphone for R120 to come to the press briefing. ”We’ll have to pay R170 to get it back, but it’s worth it,” she said.
The IFP is attempting to arrest its downward trajectory at the polls since 1994, which has seen it lose control of KwaZulu-Natal and left it without a national cabinet minister.
IFP leaders agree the aim is to present the party as a caring alternative to the ANC in the build-up to next year’s general election.
”Nothing beats going to people, being visible in their communities and being a part of their lives,” said IFP national organiser Albert Mncwango on the party’s growth strategy.
Mncwango said that in line with a resolution at last year’s national conference, the party has embarked on an ”accelerated campaign to recruit new members”.
This, he said, has pushed membership past the one million mark. There were now 1 600 IFP branches nationwide with five new branches launching every week.
Dovetailing with the IFP’s ”permanent visibility” in communities — especially informal settlements and urban minorities — is the party’s nationwide listening programme, which will feed into its election manifesto, to be released early next year.
Its pillars are combating poverty, law and order, education, health, the democratic challenge, redressing the wrongs of the past, South Africa in the world, the moral challenge, job creation by maximising economic growth and land.
Together with provincial campaign launches there has been ”specialised interest group follow-ups on issues such as education or agriculture”, said IFP secretary general, Musa Zondi.
”You get the sense that people want to speak to power and they have lacked the opportunity to do so, so they are grabbing this with both hands,” said Zondi.
Highlighting the IFP’s attempts to target sectors disaffected with the ANC government, Zondi listed various agricultural unions concerned about land redistribution.
Putting on a caring face for voters may go some way towards dispelling the perception that the IFP is a KwaZulu-Natal party based on Zulu support, but it cannot mask other problems.
These include a viable succession plan for its president, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, which will hold its traditional support — rural Zulus who may not countenance a leader who is a commoner.
Another threat in its KwaZulu-Natal stronghold is posed by Jacob Zuma — a Zulu traditionalist with popular appeal.
Political analyst Protas Madlala believes the IFP is ”very serious” about regaining control of KwaZulu-Natal, but that the odds are stacked against it.
”It is not a divided province. The Zweli Mkhize/S’bu Ndebele [leadership contest] is not an issue, so fighting a united ANC, which does not take anything for granted in terms of achieving 60%, will be difficult,” said Madlala.
The ANC provincial government had focused on resources, infrastructure development and service delivery in IFP strongholds — much to the IFP’s chagrin.
Madala said the IFP still had to overcome its ”historical baggage” — a tough task.
”They’re still considered a party which operated as a homeland government in cahoots with the apartheid regime. They also have the baggage of violence in the Eighties and Nineties, and their use of ethnicity as a mobilising tool,” said Madlala.
But the IFP is definitely trying to modernise. Magwaza-Msibi, its first female national chairperson, is also its premiership candidate.