Electoral commission blow for embattled NFP

The embattled National Freedom Party (NFP) has been given until 24 March next year to deal with intense factionalism and elect a new leadership or face being banned from contesting the 2024 elections.

The party is already barred from contesting by-elections in KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere over the infighting, which ended up in the High Court and resulted in the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) imposing the initial ban.

Despite the successful holding of a KwaZulu-Natal provincial conference last month, the IEC had not lifted the by-election ban, and has made it clear that should the party fail to get its house in order, it will not be contesting next year’s poll.

The IEC is also withholding more than R6 million of the allowance to the NFP, which it and other parties represented in parliament receive, due to its failure to submit financial statements on time, another result of the factionalism, which flared up after the death in 2021 of NFP founding president Zanele Magwaza-Msibi.

The party broke away from the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and contested the 2011 local government elections, making inroads in eDumbe, Nongoma and other municipalities and working in coalition with the ANC.

In 2014, it took six seats in the province and six nationally, but lost ground in 2016 when it failed to make the deadline for paying deposits for candidate registration.

Infighting in the party saw it lose further ground in 2019 — with one seat in the provincial legislature — a decline that continued in the 2021 local government elections, in which it won only 52 wards in the province.

IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela confirmed that it had imposed the ban on the NFP as its “national leadership is in dispute”. 

“The Electoral Commission has therefore suspended its interaction with the party as it relates to  accepting the nomination of candidates for by-elections; disbursing funds from the party funding purse where they qualify for such, and interacting with the party through Party Liaison Committee structures,” Bapela said.

Bapela said that they had taken this action because of a court order issued by the high court in a dispute between two factions in the party, which had instructed them to resolve the leadership impasse by electing a national executive committee.

“To the best of our knowledge, the party has to date not held such an election,” Bapela said.

Bapela said they had rejected attempts by several NFP provincial structures to contest by-elections “by insisting that the party has complied with the court order”. 

Among these is KwaZulu-Natal, which held its successful provincial conference last month. 

“Until such time as the Electoral Commission has clarity on the NFP national leadership, as per the court order, our current position towards the party will remain,” Bapela said.

A failure to meet the deadline that would see the NFP locked out of the national and provincial elections would herald the end of the party, impacting on the province and key municipalities including eThekwini, eDumbe and Nongoma.

Despite this existential threat to the party, the NFP believes that it will be able to hold its national conference in December and meet the deadline imposed on it by the NEC, according to its secretary general, Canaan Mdletshe.

It has begun consolidating its branches around the country ahead of the conference, and plans to hold provincial conferences in Mpumalanga and Gauteng during November.

“We are sorting out the issues raised by the IEC,” Mdletshe said.

“Conference is taking place in December and we have since appointed a new auditing firm to deal with issues of audited financial statements.”

Mdletshe said the party would “most definitely” meet the IEC deadline.

“We do not doubt that. In fact, we will be the first party to pay the required deposit to the IEC,” he said.

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