DA threatens to punish the IFP for ‘betrayal’

The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) might pay dearly for its betrayal of the DA during the vote for the new Johannesburg mayor earlier this month.

The IFP councillors voted in support of the ANC mayoral candidate, leaving the DA feeling betrayed.

DA KwaZulu-Natal provincial leader Zwakele Mncwango has indicated that the party is considering reneging on the signed agreement with the IFP in the province.

“The IFP has decided to marry itself to the ANC. In any relationship, when your partner decides to be unfaithful and marry themselves to someone else, that inevitably means the end of that relationship. In this case we did not pull out, they [the IFP] are the ones who pulled out of our signed agreement,” said Mncwango.

The parties initially went into cooperative governance in seven municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal following the 2016 municipal elections.

Now they are down to four municipalities – Abaqulusi, Zululand District, Mtubatuba and Jozini Municipality – after they lost three municipalities in by-elections.

Mncwango said the IFP stuck by the DA until the day of the vote, promising that all the media reports of a possible shift by the IFP, and the IFP partnering with the ANC, were categorically untrue.

“I don’t even know why their political slogan is ‘Trust Us’ because how can one trust such a party?

“Nationally, James Selfe [who now heads the DA’s services delivery unit] was in constant negotiations with the IFP treasurer-general, Narend Singh, who kept denying that the party was going to renege on its 2016 cooperative agreement with the DA, EFF and other smaller parties. Selfe, who kept updating the DA until the last minute, said the IFP was still on board.

“Their [IFP] leader Velenkosini Hlabisa even approached me after a sitting with the KwaZulu-Natal provincial legislature, which we attend together, and assured me as the DA KwaZulu-Natal provincial leader that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with all the media speculation that the IFP would be partnering the ANC.

“He assured me that should the IFP’s position change I would be the first person he told since we have an agreement.

“But the party went on to betray us. Why did he come to me and lie to me when he knew the IFP had agreed with the ANC?” asked Mncwango.

He said that after reading media reports saying the IFP had reached an agreement with the ANC, he again reached out to the party’s chairperson, Bonginkosi Dhlamini.

“He sent me numerous text messages to say that his party was still committed to following through on the 2016 cooperative agreements we had engaged in. Following this and just days before the vote I also went to the federal executive and reassured them that the IFP was still on board,” said Mncwango.

He said no one should misconstrue what happened. “We are not pulling out of any agreement, the IFP pulled out and we can therefore no longer be a part of this.”

His main bone of contention was that the DA had agreed to be kingmakers in the seven municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal and literally handed over governance to the IFP only for the latter to turn around and stab the DA in the back.

Geoff Makhubo. Picture: Felix Dlangamandla

“How do you betray a party that literally handed you power and asked for nothing in return?” asked Mncwango.

IFP spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa said: “I think the DA in the province [KwaZulu-Natal] should communicate with Johannesburg because I think they are making utterances as a knee-jerk reaction.

“They are not on the same wave length; the DA in Johannesburg is not crying foul because they understand what happened. I caution the DA in KwaZulu-Natal to talk to those in Johannesburg.” Hlengwa said the DA and the EFF fielded candidates for the position of mayor, showing there were already cracks in the alliance.

Read:‘We were undermined’: IFP clarifies its decisions to dump the DA

Meanwhile, last week the two councillors who voted with the ANC to elect Geoff Makhubo as the new mayor and Nonceba Molwele as speaker were revealed as Vinay Choonie and Basil Douglas.

The pair had since received disciplinary notices from the federal office which had been signed by chairperson Helen Zille.

Choonie told City Press that his decision was shaped by a number of issues, including that the DA was anti-poor, anti-black and that Makhubo was simply a better candidate compared with DA nominee Funzela Ngobeni.

“Makhubo was the former MMC [member of the mayoral committee] of finance and he has experience; I have heard him speak in council and he speaks sense,” he said.

The DA councillor said the party had recently taken the decision to concentrate on winning over the white, coloured and Indian groups.

“They said to us we must not concentrate on black areas; are we really going this route now of separating people and being racist?” Choonie asked.

He said his decision to defy the DA was not based on any agreement with the governing party as he would not “sell himself for money” and that he would not be jumping at the chance of joining the ruling party because he was not a “political prostitute”.

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