Durban - After months of internal infighting, court battles and even hoax e-mails, the national executive committee (NEC) of the Minority Front (MF) has suspended party leader Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi as chairwoman of the body and wants her to vacate her seat in the provincial legislature.
Party spokesman, Patrick Pillay, said members of the NEC had taken the decision on Friday after convening a disciplinary hearing against Thakur-Rajbansi.
She had been charged with bringing the party into disrepute, “undermining the authority and respect of the party and its leaders” and failing to disclose the party’s financial affairs.
Thakur Rajbansi did not attend the disciplinary hearing.
“Due to Mrs Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi not availing herself to defend the charges, without reason or an apology, the disciplinary inquiry continued in her absence. The NEC, after careful consideration and deliberation on the evidence that was presented, found her guilty on all charges,” Pillay said.
This news came just two weeks after Pillay dismissed as a “pure hoax” and “malicious mischief” a widely circulated e-mail claiming that Thakur-Rajbansi had been removed as party leader.
Yesterday, Pillay said the party had no other option but to suspend Thakur-Rajbansi and “redeploy” her.
“She has been told that she needs to get on the ground and build party structures.”
Pillay, the MF caucus leader in the eThekwini Municipality, said party leaders were angry that Thakur-Rajbansi had moved the MF bank accounts from Standard Bank’s Chatsworth branch to Msunduzi without authority from the NEC and for airing the party’s internal matters in a letter to the Daily News’s sister paper, the Sunday Tribune.
In the letter to the Sunday Tribune last month, Thakur-Rajbansi complained about the “greed and foolishness by some councillors” and claimed she had “single-handedly planned and fought the May 7 general elections”.
Pillay said Friday’s decision means the party’s vice-chairman, Shane Hansraj, will run the party’s day-to-day affairs.
He said that while Thakur-Rajbansi had not formally responded to the NEC’s decision, he had been told she was aware of the decision.
Despite several attempts to reach Thakur-Rajbansi for comment, including SMSes, she did not respond to enquiries from the Daily News.
Pillay said the party would meet later this month in an attempt to call a national conference to elect a party leader. A date had not yet been set for the conference, he said.
“It is unfortunate the party is going through this impasse. Mrs Thakur-Rajbansi was given the opportunity to lead the party and she has failed dismally. We want to assure our supporters that we will overcome this,” he said on Sunday.
Since the death of party leader, Amichand Rajbansi, the MF had lost two wards to the DA in recent by-elections and its only seat on the eThekwini executive council. It also lost its only seat in the National Assembly and its two seats in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature were reduced to one.
Imraan Buccus, a political analyst at the University of KZN, said the death of Rajbansi was the beginning of the end for the MF.
“One of the key factors that held the MF together was the political gravitas (Amichand) Rajbansi held. Bearing in mind that this is a party without any serious political vision for the country, it comes as no surprise that the party began to self-destruct after his passing away,” he said.
“One needs to bear in mind the crisis of internal democracy has not helped things within the MF. A party that constructs itself around an ethnic framing is certainly not going to win any political accolades 21 years into our democracy.”
Daily News