IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) believes it can retain power in all but “one or two” of the 29 KwaZulu-Natal municipalities under its control despite the collapse of its coalition agreement with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)
On Sunday, EFF president Julius Malema announced that his party had instructed EFF deputy mayors in eight hung KwaZulu-Natal councils to resign with immediate effect and that the co-governance agreement between the two parties was over.
The resignations could cost the IFP control of the uMhlathuze, Dannhauser, Mtubatuba, Nongoma and Maphumulo local councils, as well as the uThukela, Zululand and Amajuba district municipalities, all of which it took with the support of the EFF after November 2021 local government elections.
The party has reversed the electoral losses it sustained in 2011 in subsequent local and provincial elections, taking back control of 26 municipalities — some of them hung — as well as clawing back provincial votes in the 2019 poll.
On Monday IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa told a media briefing in Durban that the agreement had collapsed because of an EFF demand for the mayorship of uMhlathuze in return for giving the IFP the mayorship of Mogale City in Gauteng as part of a multiple party agreement with the ANC.
Hlabisa said the IFP had refused to agree to this.
“The IFP was categorically clear that we would not hand uMhlathuze over to the EFF, as this would be a betrayal of the trust and confidence placed in the IFP by the people of uMhlathuze,” Hlabisa said. “We informed the EFF that we would not enter into any coalition arrangement that was inclusive of the ANC.”
Hlabisa said his party had offered the EFF the mayorship of Durban — where a vote of no confidence in incumbent Mxolisi Kaunda is set to take place on Tuesday — in return for backing an opposition coalition in removing the ANC.
“The EFF rejected these proposals, indicating that their deal with the ANC would proceed with or without us,” he said, adding that the EFF instruction to eight deputy mayors to resign would not cost the IFP all of the councils.
“Out of the 29 municipalities we currently govern, the IFP is only likely to lose one municipality because of this latest development,” Hlabisa said.
“Whilst they are currently exaggerated, we will take the loss of one or two municipalities as and when this arises, and then let the citizens be the judges in 2024. We will not be new to the opposition benches in Gauteng and we will definitely not be dragooned into unholy coalitions with the ANC at the behest of the EFF.”
He said the “marriage of corruption” between the ANC and the EFF would not derail the IFP’s recovery of power in the province, which would continue in the 2024 national and provincial elections.
“We will not be distracted from this important work by insults from political parties that flip-flop with each passing month,” Hlabisa said.
On the labelling of the IFP as “apartheid collaborators” by Malema, Hlabisa said the party had “a legacy built on a foundation of trust” and that “our track record of good governance speaks for itself”.
He added that although Malema had said the door to discussion between the parties was still open, “the IFP believes that that door is closed”.
He said the IFP would start talking to other opposition parties about cooperation agreements in areas where there was no clear majority in 2024 in a bid to unseat the ANC nationally and in the provinces.
“Coalitions will be unavoidable in 2024. There will be no single party ruling alone with 50 percent plus,” Hlabisa said. “From 2021, coalitions have come to South Africa to stay.”
“We will experience coalitions in 2024. The IFP has always been a champion of negotiations. We are going to lead the process of talking to opposition parties … we are hopeful that we will get more parties coming to work with the IFP in governing where there will be no clear majority,” he added.
Nongoma mayor Albert Mncwango said the IFP “wish the EFF well in their journey to hell”.
He said that Malema’s comments about the IFP’s history were “reckless” and had been made by somebody who was “breastfeeding when this country burned”.
“Nobody wants to go back to that unfortunate time. [Malema] must stop this recklessness and start being a proper leader,” he said.