The current NFP leadership has accused former leaders of “abusing” party president Zanele KaMagwaza-Msibi because she is frail.
This after former National Executive Committee members who had resigned from the party appeared with kaMagwaza-Msibi at a press briefing this past weekend, stating that KaMagwaza-Msibi had forgiven their mistake and they would be resuming their positions as members of the NEC.
The party already has another NEC in place.
The leaders, including Maliyakhe Shelembe, Nhlanhla Khubisa and Alex Kekana had been largely blamed for the party being prevented from contesting the local government elections in 2016 after failing to pay an election deposit to the IEC.
They, at the time, resigned from their positions as KaMagwaza-Msibi announced plans to dissolve their leadership in the wake of the election bungle.
“Clearly the party president is not well, it cannot be that she announced that she was dissolving the (previous) NEC, and now she is announcing that very same NEC can take up their old positions again,” said the party’s Deputy President Sindi Maphumulo-Mashinini.
“These people are abusing the president. They took her from her home and planted her there at that press conference like a statue to give it legitimacy.
“The NFP has head offices where it conducts its matters, it has NEC leaders and we are the members of that NEC. That press briefing (by former leaders) was meaningless nonsense,” she said.
Maphumulo-Mashinini said they did not believe that the statements being read out on behalf of KaMagwaza-Msibi were drafted by her.