Thabo Mbeki on the volkstaat

CITY PRESS

4 APRIL 2004

In the quest for power in KwaZulu-Natal, the battlelines have been drawn alike between the main adversaries, the ANC and IFP, and their leaders, ANC president Thabo Mbeki (left) and IFP

Can ANC beat IFP in KwaZulu-Natal?

In one of his most strongly worded utterances to date on the IFP leader, Mbeki last week labelled Buthelezi a right-winger.

This has not gone down well with the IFP leader and his DA counterpart, who want the election to be fought on ideas and governmental track record and not on what they term labelling. For Mbeki and the ANC in the province, however, people must not lose sight of what the DA and IFP coalition represents. Mbeki recently reminded the electorate on his party website about the role of the IFP on the eve of the first democratic election in 1994 as the country was putting together the final touches for a nonracial democracy .

"In 1992, as our country was engaged in negotiations to end apartheid rule, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) joined the Conservative Party led by Ferdie Hartzenberg, the Bophuthatswana and Ciskei Bantustans of Lucas Mangope and Oupa Gqozo, and other right-wing Afrikaner groups to form an alliance that called itself the Concerned South Africans Group (Cosag).

"The aim of Cosag was to derail the process of negotiations and impose a settlement on the country that would result, among other things, in an independent 'Kingdom of KwaZulu-Natal' and an Afrikaner volkstaat. If necessary, this grouping was ready to resort to force to impose its will on the country. This it tried to do when it attempted a disastrous armed insurrection in the then Mmabatho, in Bophuthatswana.

"The IFP later featured in another alliance of a similar kind, the Freedom Alliance formed in October 1993. In addition to the groups that constituted Cosag were now added the KwaZulu 'homeland' and the Afrikaner Volksfront, described by former president F W de Klerk as a coalition of 21 conservative Afrikaans groups."

Mbeki suggests that the IFP decision to form an alliance with the DA does not differ much from the same alliance it formed prior to the country's first democratic election in order to ensure that KwaZulu continues as a separate enclave from the rest of South Africa. He suggests this is the true intention of the DA and IFP alliance.

For his part, Buthelezi was aggrieved at Mbeki's approach in this election, saying he believed the president was continuing to play an ideological card. Responding to Mbeki's attack, Buthelezi said he was "flabbergasted that while I am campaigning, talking about real issues which affect all South Africans, the response I get from the president is one which deals with ideology. This is not time for ideology."

Buthelezi has already pointed out that his party too needs an outright win in the province. He knows that anything less could herald the beginning of the end for the IFP. He believes a convincing victory for the party would allow it to carry out its mandate and not be subjected to making compromises with the provincial ANC.

He has pointed to several limitations his party has had to endure while being in a coalition with the ANC. He recently told a gathering in Durban that "the circumstances in which we have had to work has meant that the IFP was unable to fully implement (its) programme for government".

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