There is increasing talk of “fractured families” in rural KwaZulu-Natal, with allegiances split between an embattled Inkatha Freedom Party, an ANC that is steadily growing its electoral support in far-flung parts of the province and the nascent National Freedom Party (NFP).
This week the NFP, a breakaway party formed in February by the IFP’s former national chairperson, Zanele Magwaza-Msibi, announced the embarrassing defection from the IFP of Nelisiwe Mncwango.
Mncwango is director of community services at the Nongoma local municipality, but she is also the wife of Inkatha’s national organiser, Albert Mncwango. He refused to comment on “a family matter” but remained defiant that defections to the NFP — 170 sitting municipal councillors and several mayors to date, in addition to ordinary members — had “rid the IFP of deadwood”.
“The process for drawing up lists of candidates has been very smooth in the aftermath of this whole VZ [Magwaza-Msibi’s nickname] thing and we have fresh people coming in to invigorate the party,” said Albert Mncwango. The IFP is contesting all wards in KwaZulu-Natal, he said, and is confident of defending “all the municipalities we currently hold” while also capturing “strategic municipalities”.
These include Richards Bay, “which we lost to the ANC because of [the now-defunct] floor-crossing”, and Pietermaritzburg, “where they have been messing up [to the extent that former mayor Zanele Hlatshwayo and her entire executive were removed by the provincial government last year]”.
Going into May’s local government elections the IFP holds 32 of the province’s municipalities and the ANC 29. It is a slim lead that analysts feel may be overturned, given the IFP’s consistently declining electoral fortunes since the 1994 general election when it won 50,32% of the provincial vote compared with the ANC’s 32,23%. In the 2009 general election the IFP slipped to 22,4% of the provincial vote, while the ANC jumped to 62,94%.
‘Fishing for votes’
Albert Mncwango conceded that the introduction of the NFP meant both parties were “fishing from the same pond” for votes in areas such as Zululand — considered the IFP traditional heartland but from which Magwaza-Msibi, formerly a popular district mayor there, has welcomed 72 defecting IFP councillors.
The ANC’s provincial head of campaigns, Nhlakanipho Ntombela, said that his party was also “more free to campaign and electioneer” in Zululand towns such as Ulundi and Nongoma because “the IFP is focusing on making these areas no-go zones for the NFP, not us”.
Andile Biyela, NFP spokesperson, agreed that his party is “suffering the brunt of intimidatory IFP tactics to stop us campaigning in certain areas, like in T-section [in] Umlazi recently, where our members had stones thrown at their homes and gunshots fired nearby on the eve of a meeting”. Meanwhile, the ANC held a successful rally in Nongoma last weekend. Ntombela said: “We could walk around the town with ANC T-shirts on without being hassled, whereas previously you needed the police commissioner to accompany you here.”
He said he believed a “new dynamic” was at work in rural KwaZulu-Natal since the NFP’s formation, with increasing political tolerance because some families had members with different political loyalties. “We are having normal engagements with young people from different parties about normal political matters without the threat of violence — even with the Caprivi-trained IFP guys,” he said.
Voting patterns in the province since 1994 suggest that the ANC is making gains in traditionally pro-IFP areas. Ntombela suggested that this “needed to be built on” as the IFP focused attention on the NFP. Areas such as the Emnambithi (Ladysmith) local municipality will be hotly contested in the elections. Emnambithi, with the Indaka, Umtshezi (Estcourt), Okhahlamba and Imbabazane local municipalities, fall under the uThukela district municipality.
The NFP recently welcomed the defection of 45 IFP councillors from the Ladysmith area, including the mayors of Indaka, Okhahlamba and Umtshezi. At the same time the ANC has made steady electoral gains in these areas. In Umtshezi the IFP won 47,13% of the vote in the 2006 local government elections compared with the ANC’s 34,85%, but the latter edged out the former in the 2009 general election with 45,47% of the vote compared with the IFP’s 44,63%.
In Indaka the ANC garnered 17,49% in the 2006 local government election compared with the IFP’s 76,62%. But in 2009 the ANC closed in on the IFP, winning 42,24% compared with the IFP’s 53,89%. University of KwaZulu-Natal political scientist Zakhele Ndlovu said that May’s local government elections “could prove to be the final nail in the coffin for the IFP”.
“The NFP will take a lot of support away from the IFP, especially in areas like Zululand. But even if the NFP did not exist, the ANC has shown growth in areas such as northern KwaZulu-Natal and it appears likely to continue doing so.”