The IFP continues to bleed senior leaders – stalwart the Reverend Musa Zondi, who was widely touted as a possible successor to party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi, has resigned as an MP and as IFP secretary-general in a move that confirms his announcement last December that he wanted to retire from active politics.
Zondi resigned from the National Assembly in January, but this was kept secret by his party.
IFP insiders said he had resigned as secretary-general at the party’s national executive committee meeting on January 30.
Zondi’s resignation followed those of national organiser Albert Mncwango earlier this year and KwaZulu-Natal secretary Bonginkosi Buthelezi and MPL Thulasizwe Buthelezi last year.
Zondi had been an IFP member for more than 30 years, serving as IFP Youth Brigade chairman, and as a member of the national executive committee and the national council. He was also a deputy minister in the cabinet of former president Thabo Mbeki.
The IFP has yet to hold an elective conference, where key positions would come up for grabs. Zondi had been tipped to take one of the key positions.
However, he had indicated in December that he was not interested in election to any political position.
Zondi said at the time that he was aware that assassins had been hired to kill him as he was viewed as a “stumbling block” to those who wanted to topple Buthelezi as IFP president.
He called on IFP members to let him retire from active politics to take care of his family.
“After 32 years of solidly loyal service to my party, I have simply asked for an opportunity to devote my waning energies to my family, which in the hurly burly of politics usually takes strain,” he said.
He added that he wanted to spend time with his frail mother, and to devote “what is left of my life to my wife and children, and to attend to the numerous afflictions besetting my deceased brothers’ children”.
University of KwaZulu-Natal political scientist Zakhele Ndlovu said that Zondi’s resignation was indicative of trouble that the IFP had failed to acknowledge.
Buthelezi’s spokeswoman, Liezl van der Merwe, said the IFP leader was in a meeting of the party’s national executive committee that was expected to last until late Monday night, and was unavailable for comment. - The Mercury