Durban – KwaZulu-Natal’s voters have even more choice with two new parties entering the political fray ahead of the upcoming local government elections.
Both parties - the African Congress Union and the Democratic Liberal Congress - are spinoffs from established smaller parties.
The Democratic Liberal Congress (DLC), announced on Wednesday, is being led by Patrick Pillay.
Pillay served the Minority Front - the party founded by Armichand Rajbansi - in the eThekwini Metro Municipality for more than a decade.
The MF has been a shell of itself ever since Rajbansi died and his wife Shameen Thakur took the reins of the party.
In another development, the National Freedom Party, which split from Inkatha Freedom Party three months before the last local government election in 2011, has itself suffered a split.
Muzonjani Zulu, a senior figure in the NFP, announced that he is launching the Academic Congress Union at the end of the month. The ACU, like the DLC, is already registered with the Electoral Commission of South Africa.
Zulu, an eThekwini Metro Municipality councillor who is probably best known for shooting an Inkatha Freedom Party supporter outside the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court in 2012, is leading the party into the August election.
The split has already triggered a response from NFP leader Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi, who sought in a statement issued on Thursday to dispel rumours that she was jumping ship from the party she founded.
“I remain loyal to my organization and any attempts linking me to another political party are untrue and unfounded. I am placing it on record that I am not a member of ACU and I am not part of it or associated with it in any way. My loyalty remains with the NFP,” said kaMagwaza-Msibi.
Her absence from the public stage for almost a year and a half after she suffered a stroke in November 2014 has seen much infighting within the party.
It is this infighting that Zulu says has prompted him to leave the NFP. He also put to rest any allegation that kaMagwaZa-Msibi was joining ACU.
“I heard those rumours too. I have said it clearly. She has got nothing to do with the ACU. I respect her and I felt sorry for not consulting with her about my reasons for leaving,” said Zulu.
Like the MF, the DLC will be contesting areas in and around Durban that have traditionally been populated by Durban’s population of Indian descent.
Zulu said that the ACU will be fielding candidates in numerous areas, including Johannesburg, eThekwini, Ekurhuleni as well as a number of rural KwaZulu-Natal municipalities - the very municipalities where the NFP has strong support.
African News Agency