‘Uzalo’ actress hits campaign trail for late mom’s party

Uzalo actress Gugu Gumede has hit the ground running on the campaign trail for her late mother, Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi’s political party, the National Freedom Party (NFP). 

According to a report by Daily Sun, she addressed a crowd of supporters over the weekend at the party’s manifesto launch in Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal, and dedicated herself to serving the party. 

Gugu told the crowd to view her not as her character, MaMlambo, but as the proud NFP member that she is. 

“This is the party that was led by a leader without a single corruption mark against her, a true definition of a leader,” said the Uzalo actress. 

The party could not contest the last local government election as they were disqualified from participating after failing to pay Independent Electoral Commission fees. However, Gumede thanked the party’s supporters for sticking with them. 

“Seeing you here really brings me so much joy and a lot of emotion because I believe my mother left very very early without seeing us getting back what we lost when we were intentionally disqualified from the 2016 elections,” she reportedly said. 

She lambasted those in charge of the Zululand District Municipality for failing “to deliver basic services” and vowed that the NFP would take over where they left off when they lost power, should they be elected to lead. 

The actress also said her mother had a fighting spirit when she was alive and she believed that spirit would carry the party through the elections from “the other side”.

She added that she believed that this was because her mother’s spirit had “gained more power” upon becoming an ancestor. 

“Go out and do it for Njinji. If you need me, I am available and I can go anywhere you need me. We can’t let Njinji’s legacy die,” Gumede concluded the Uzalo actress. 

KaMagwaza-Msibi passed away in early September from cardiac arrest. She was buried a short while thereafter in a special category two provincial funeral in Ulundi.

On 25 January 2011, she founded the NFP along with other former Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) members, whom she worked with when she served as chairperson of the IFP, after a long career within the party.

She was also the science and technology deputy minister between 2014 and 2019.

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