Buthelezi’s birthday bash leads to ‘new coalitions’ forming

In photos shared by political leaders on Friday and Saturday at a party to honour IFP leader Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who turned 90 this week, unlikely political friends and foes decided to put aside their differences for the evening in Durban.

Advocate Dali Mpofu, the EFF’s national chairperson, even joked that a photo of himself with the United Democratic Movement’s leader Bantu Holomisa, the DA’s top man Mmusi Maimane and the ANC’s former top six leader Zweli Mkhize, now the minister of cooperative governance, could be a sign of things to come in coalition politics.

When someone asked him what sort of coalition this was, he merely answered: “Birthday coalition.”

There were great tensions this week in the metros, as the UDM’s Mongameli Bobani replaced the DA’s Athol Trollip as the mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay, while the EFF attempted unsuccessfully to bring a motion of no confidence in Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga of the DA.

Maimane said he would be looking to meet with the EFF leadership to try to iron out their differences. In the meantime, the DA has gone to court to attempt to reverse the outcome in the Bay.

Mpofu, however, appeared keen to remind Maimane on Saturday that the primary breakdown in their relationship had stemmed from the DA choosing not to support the EFF’s motion to change the constitution to allow for the expropriation without compensation of land earlier this year.

Buthelezi’s birthday dinner brought together even more unlikely old foes, with Holomisa sharing a pic of himself smiling with a laughing former president Jacob Zuma. He used the respectful title ‘Nxamalala’ for Zuma.