By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG — Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi's surprise decision to have his Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) participate in the national and provincial elections and both the levels was announced on April 19. The Inkatha leader accepted a deal that, in its essentials, he had rejected when Nelson Mandela offered it two weeks earlier: to guarantee the status of the Zulu monarch in the KwaZulu/Natal constitution.
Buthelezi agreed that any further objections to the constitution would be the subject of international mediation after the election. All parties pledged to ensure their supporters would participate peacefully in the elections. King Goodwill Zwelithini, the traditional Zulu king, issued a statement advising all Zulus to vote.
Following Buthelezi's back-down, deaths from political violence dropped immediately in Natal and on the east Rand. Plans by the IFP Youth League and its Third Force-linked leader, Themba Khosa, to launch a week of "mass action" in central Johannesburg were postponed, then called off.
Speaking at a packed press conference on April 21, ANC secretary general Cyril Ramaphosa said Buthelezi's change of heart had come at an enormous and tragic cost. The IFP "was using our people as cannon fodder in pursuit of their own parochial party-political positions ... They put the whole country's future in jeopardy. They have revealed their sinister strategy that has consumed so many lives in the sudden reduction of violence after the agreement. It is final proof that the violence has largely been perpetrated by supporters of the IFP because they wanted to obtain their objectives at all costs."
The relief in the streets and shops here was palpable. People could speak of little else. Relief, however, was mixed with bitterness at the number of lives lost to Buthelezi's intransigence.
The back-down followed the intervention of a Kenyan mediator immediately after international mediation collapsed on April 14. Whatever the quality of this man's words, his intervention allowed Buthelezi to save face. Torpedoing international mediation by insisting on the postponement of the election before agreement on other differences was Buthelezi's last fling of the dice. It was now absolutely clear that Mandela would not agree to it under any circumstances.
Buthelezi then faced the stark choice of intensifying the civil war in Natal and spreading it to the South Africa's economic heart, the PWV region, or cutting his losses and joining the election.
The ANC was determined not to allow the violence in Natal to derail the elections. Cyril Ramaphosa warned on April 14 that more troops would be moved into KwaZulu/Natal to strengthen the state of emergency and block Inkatha's plans to disrupt the election.
Inkatha's ability to disrupt elections to the extent of having them abandoned, even in KwaZulu/Natal, was questionable. On April 14, the European Union observer mission in South Africa estimated that 65% of voters in the region would be able to vote without any threat of violence or intimidation.
Surveys had shown that a majority of IFP supporters were keen to vote (confirmed by the scenes of jubilation in the KwaZulu capital, Ulundi, after the agreement was reached). The Independent Electoral Commission predicted a voter turnout of over 50% in KwaZulu/Natal.
Inkatha's threats of violent disruption were not intended to achieve the impossible task of stopping the election but to pry as many concessions as possible to entrench Buthelezi's power prior to the elections. When the limits of the ANC's willingness to compromise were finally reached, Buthelezi realised that a continued poll boycott would be counter-productive. All that would achieve would be loss of his institutional power base in the KwaZulu administration. The source of the material largesse that much of his support is based on would disappear without anything to replace it.
Running in the elections gives the IFP a shot at power at the provincial level. Should the ANC not achieve 50% of the vote in KwaZulu/Natal, Inkatha might cobble together a coalition with the NP and/or the opportunists of the Democratic Party.
At the very least, the IFP will have cabinet posts in the KwaZulu/Natal government. If the IFP can scrape together 5% of the national vote, Buthelezi will be a cabinet minister in the government of national unity.
Several other factors may have influenced Buthelezi's decision. There are rumours that Zwelithini was preparing to accept Mandela's constitutional proposals safeguarding his position. Buthelezi could not afford to allow such a split, as he then would have had to rely on the IFP's base rather than the many more supporters of the king and Zulu tradition. There have also been reports that IFP "moderates" had threatened to resign and participate in the elections.
Buthelezi's participation should reduce political violence in Natal in the short term. However, he remains one of the main opponents of democracy in South Africa. After the election, he may well be tempted to again mobilise his ethnic-chauvinist supporters to achieve through violence what he does not achieve at the ballot box.
Buthelezi's U-turn, Jeremy Cronin of the South African Communist Party told Green Left Weekly, will not end violence in Natal or the PWV but will diminish it. "Above all it marks another crack in the armed, right-wing anti-election project. Bophuthatswana was the last big crack ... Constand Viljoen coming into the electoral process was another crack, and now this is a very decisive one ... It is very important this foundation election is as inclusive as possible."
Cronin said that the ANC remained "fairly confident" it would win government in KwaZulu/Natal. Buthelezi's reversal probably came "four months too late" to make gains at the polls. But intimidation will continue in some parts of KwaZulu/Natal, where "you will be a brave ANC supporter to make it known you voted ANC".
A spokesperson for the Natal Midlands ANC, Blade Nzimande, said that the ANC was not nervous about the entry of the IFP into the election. "In fact, Inkatha's entering of the race is very positive for the ANC because it will relieve thousands of ANC voters who would otherwise have been stopped from voting. We are very confident that we will win Natal."
Nzimande added that the poll's fairness would not be "ideal". "What remains a problem is our inability to reach areas that are controlled by the chiefs and Inkatha. We anticipate in the next few days, when we try to enter those areas, there will be difficulties because the IFP is desperate to deliver bloc votes in those areas."