FILE PHOTO: The late IFP founder and leader, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi and former President of the ANC and the country, Mr Jacob Zuma shaking hands. PICTURE: IOL
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0 The ANC should continue to leverage as much electoral support as possible from President Zuma’s popularity to keep the province from a possible IFP-DA coalition, WRITES SIBUSISO SAMANTUNGWA
Along with Moses Mabhida, former secretary-general of the South African Communist Party (SACP), former African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma opposed Muziwakhe Ngwenya’s appointment as commander of Umkhonto weSizwe – an ANC military wing popularly known as the MK – in the neighbouring Eswatini on an account that he hailed from Soweto, south of Johannesburg, Gauteng. In other words, Zuma built his ethnographic Zulu nationalist support towards the end of the ANC’s 82-year-long pursuit of a liberation struggle.
Mabhida’s 1985 death left Zuma as the only senior Zulu leader within the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, wrote Stephen Ellis in External Mission, a book that provides an account of the ANC in exile. However, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) founder Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi was more senior to him in KwaZulu-Natal, where voter behaviour is linked to ethnic identity.
Buthelezi, who cut his teeth in politics as an ANC Youth League (ANCYL) member, died last month at the age of 95. Therefore, his death has left Zuma as the only senior Zulu leader in the province. The question thus arises: “Can the ANC use Zuma’s seniority as political leverage to retain KwaZulu-Natal?”
To answer this question, one has to first look at what Buthelezi’s death means for the IFP, launched in 1975 as the National Cultural Political Movement. At the time of its formation, the National Party (NP)-led racist government had outlawed the ANC and its breakaway party, the Pan-African Congress (PAC).
As if that were not enough, the despotic regime had sentenced Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba, to name but a few, to life imprisonment in what is known as the Rivonia Trial. This turn of events had, in essence, created a national leadership crisis within the context of the liberation struggle.
In this regard, Buthelezi founded the Zulu nationalist party, formerly known as Inkatha, a sacred coil that symbolises the unity of the Zulu nation, to lead KwaZulu-Natal and projected himself as a black national liberator, wrote Jabulani ‘Mzala’ Nxumalo in Gatsha Buthelezi the Chief With Double Agenda.
In fact, due to its founder’s collaboration with the apartheid system as early as the 1950s, the IFP has its roots in a homeland system. According to Mzala, who died in 1991 at the age of 35, the Buthelezi clan, along with the ANC and peasants countrywide, rejected the system, but not Gatsha, who is a son of King Dinizulu’s daughter, Princess Magogo. For his endorsement of the despotic system, he was undeservedly rewarded with his tribal chieftaincy, albeit Mcelile was his elder brother.
He went on to serve as prime minister of the Zulu nation, a position he held until his last breath. This position had endeared not only him and, by extension, the IFP to the Zulu nation. Therefore, his death has created a serious identity crisis for the party, not only within the Zulu nation but also in an electoral market, as his anointed successor, Velenkosini Hlabisa, is not a chief.
The IFP is thus no longer easily identifiable with the Zulu monarchy. The crisis might be exacerbated if a report to the effect that Zwelini ‘Zweli’ Mkhize, a former ANC treasurer-general whose seniority arguably lags him behind Zuma in the province, would replace Buthelezi as the prime minister of the Zulu nation holds the truth. This would make the ANC more easily identifiable with the Zulu nation in the electoral market.
Between 1976 and 1979, the IFP’s membership drastically shot up from 30,000 to 250,000. According to a 1978 survey by the Arnold Bergstrasse Institute, half (50 per cent) of its supporters supported the then outlawed ANC. Over the years, the figure might have either increased or decreased.
Having looked at what Buthelezi’s death means for the IFP in the electoral market, it is now befitting to answer the afore-posed question. Although Zuma is a self-serving centrifugal figure, the ANC KwaZulu-Natal has included him among the former provincial leaders to forge party unity, which increases a party’s appeal in the electoral market.
The reality is that, even prior to Buthelezi’s death, it required his political leverage to minimise its electoral decline. In 2019, the ANC declined by a whopping 10.3 per cent in KwaZulu-Natal, thereby declining for the first time in the province since the first democratic elections in April 1994. It continued on its downward spiral, notably failing to retain EThekwini, the only metropolitan municipality in the province, by an outright majority.
KwaZulu-Natal, which is the country’s second most populous province behind Gauteng, holds significant sway in the national electoral market. Therefore, the ANC should do well in the province to retain state power.
In particular, the ANC requires one aspect of Zuma’s rich political capital, namely ethno-Zulu nationalism, a powerful mobilising mechanism – especially in KwaZulu-Natal – that dates back to the early 1920s. The IFP used it as a strategy to fight the ANC for black support in the urban areas, where it had lost a great deal of support due to its participation in the homeland system.
This had resulted in a violent political conflict between the two parties. Beginning in September 1984, as the political conflict intensified, South Africa experienced vigilante violence, commonly referred to as ‘black-on-black violence’.
Zuma mediated the conflict, which came to an end in a short time lag between the exclusionary regime and the democratic dispensation. From his mediatory role, in Ellis’ words in the foregoing book, “Zuma was later to reap his political reward with an influx of new Zulu members into the ANC, as it absorbed many former Inkatha supporters.” Hence, he has been credited for waning the IFP’s electoral support in KwaZulu-Natal, much to the benefit of the ANC.
Interestingly, the ANC won the province with an outright majority for the first time under his presidency, thereby increasing its market share by a whopping 16 per cent from 2004 to 2009. Despite his scandal-ridden presidency, most notably a R246 million security upgrade at his homestead in Nkandla, it only grew in KwaZulu-Natal by 1.6 per cent in the subsequent elections.
In total, the liberation movement-turned-political party grew by 17.6 per cent in the province under his presidency. In the past three general elections, its performance in KwaZulu-Natal is largely ascribable to ethno-Zulu nationalism.
It grew because Zuma is a Zulu and declined because his incumbent successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, is a Venda from Soweto, but grew up in Venda, Limpopo.
Despite his shortcomings, Zuma is still a popular political figure in the province. Therefore, the ANC should continue to leverage as much electoral support as possible from his popularity. This, in essence, answers the question.
Sibusiso Samantungwa is an ANC member at Mzala Nxumalo Region in KwaZulu-Natal.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Republic Mail and its associates.
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