Buthelezi’s continued IFP leadership has destroyed young leaders – analyst

The Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP’s) new leader Velenkosini Hlabisa, who was over the weekend handpicked by the party’s outgoing nonagenarian leader Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi after 44 years at the helm, is expected to be the proxy of his former political boss, a political analyst said yesterday.

Xolani Dube of the Xubera Institute for Research and Development warned that should the little-known Hlabisa fail to redefine the IFP into a modern political party – looking beyond Zulu nationalism – the organisation was “heading for doldrums, with factionalism thriving”.

“History has taught us that when dictators like Buthelezi leave political office, they leave non-entities like Hlabisa, who are controlled behind the scenes.

“Like Buthelezi has done at the IFP conference over the weekend, whatever Hlabisa does, will alienate other leaders,” said Dube.

Commenting on the IFP conference, Dube said: “It was a farewell to Buthelezi rather than an IFP conference, with everything stage-managed by him.

“There were no elections, but an anointing of a hand-picked leader – a decision taken by Buthelezi alone without any opposition,” he said.

“He [Buthelezi] shut down the name of Ziba Jiyane, and downplayed his return to the party and ridiculed him,” Dube said.

“People of the generation of Buthelezi and former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, are people who do not easily hand over power.

“While he promised he would not serve in the National Assembly’s sixth parliament as an MP, Buthelezi returned, and is likely to be very much in the scene at the IFP.

“He has demonstrated at this IFP conference that he does not respect democratic values. This conference was as ambiguous as Buthelezi’s character,” Dube said.

Buthelezi, who is the oldest MP, “left the party at its weakest point”, he added.

Dube charged: “He has destroyed generational succession within the IFP. If he was a true democrat, he could have left the IFP during the time of Oscar Dhlomo and Frank Mdlalose.

“His continued leadership destroyed young leaders,” Dube said.

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