Africa News Summary : News Headlines : Discussion Forums

Friday, July 26, 2002 - Web posted at 11:09:35 am GMT

JOHANNESBURG, July 26 (AFP) - Politics in South Africa are in flux after eight years of stable majority rule under the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), with junior members of the ruling coalition and the opposition both under strain amid warnings that violence may erupt.

Communists, who have seven ministerial posts, chanted anti-Thabo Mbeki slogans at their annual conference this week, and the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which has three portfolios, is under attack by the ANC.

ANC-inspired legislation, currently under court challenge, would allow national, provincial and municipal representatives, elected through proportional representation from closed party lists, to switch parties.

That could allow the ANC to seize control of eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, the IFP's stronghold, and the city of Cape Town, now ruled by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which draws most of its support from whites and coloureds (mixed-race).

Rumblings are also coming from the powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions, which is in alliance with the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP), over Mbeki's open market and AIDS policies.

Members of the SACP yelled such slogans as "Let us fight, Mbeki does not want to talk" on Wednesday after he cancelled a scheduled opening address at their conference, claiming pressure of cabinet work.

If the Constitutional Court approves the floor-crossing legislation next month and the ANC takes over the premiership of KwaZulu-Natal as a result of defections, the IFP will pull out of the provincial government, says IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the national home affairs minister.

In May, Buthelezi reminded MPs of bloody fighting between ANC and IFP supporters between 1985 and 1995 which left 12,000 dead, and warned that the situation in KwaZulu-Natal was becoming critical.

"Now people must realise that simmering underneath ... we have not managed, in fact, to destroy all these fires that destroyed so many of our people," he told the national upper house, the National Council of Provinces.

"From now onwards, the gloves are off," the ANC KwaZulu-Natal leadership warned in a statement on Monday, accusing the IFP of "a sustained campaign ... using blatant lies to character assassinate ANC provincial leadership".

The ANC is also suggesting the IFP rethink its position in the national government, though Mbeki told journalists Thursday: "as far as I know the IFP will continue to serve in the government."

The dispute prompted Tony Leon, leader of the DA, to describe Buthelezi as a "visionary leader", a clear sign that he is considering the possibility of allying with the IFP against the ANC.

A Johannesburg-based newspaper said in an editorial Thursday that Mbeki's snub to the SACP was a wake-up call to communists to part ways with the ruling party.

The Star, under the headline "SACP must face the truth", said communists must realise that the party's socialist policy had put it on a "direct collision course" with the ANC.

"Eventually the SACP will have to face the truth and cut its symbolic ties with the ANC," it said.

The alliance between the ANC, SACP and COSATU is based on their long history of jointly fighting apartheid but tensions have risen because of the SACP's criticism of the government's privatisation programme and of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) which Mbeki is spearheading along with the presidents of Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal.

The opposition meanwhile is in disarray after the withdrawal from the DA of the New National Party (NNP), which ruled under apartheid as the National Party, leaving it composed only of Leon's Democratic Party, which has 38 seats in the 400-seat National Assembly, and the tiny Federal Alliance, headed by Louis Luyt, an Afrikaner businessman turned rugby administrator, which has two seats.

The NNP, which has 28 National Assembly seats, has now fallen into bed with the ANC, signing a power-sharing pact in Western Cape province, which includes Cape Town, and is hoping for a national cabinet post.

That partnership strikes many South Africans as bizarre and unlikely to last. - Nampa-AFP

•  Big Brother Africa 3: The audacity of Hazel!
•  Big Brother Africa 3: Who's your winner?