Taking fight to IFP heartland

National Freedom Party (NFP) leader Zanele Magwaza-Msibi took her campaign up a notch when she held a prayer meeting at the infamous eMandleni-Matleng camp - a place which has become synonymous with the IFP.

Besides the IFP, its youth and women structures, no other political party has used the venue in Ulundi, northern KwaZulu-Natal. Successive IFP conferences have been held there.

It was there where Magwaza-Msibi was elected as IFP national chairman in 2005. But on Friday she was there to receive blessings from various religious leaders, who prayed for her party's success in the local government elections.

In her address to about 1000 supporters who braved the wet and chilly weather, Magwaza-Msibi hinted that she fancied returning to lead the Zululand district municipality, which incorporates the IFP's heartland of Nongoma and Ulundi.

She was the mayor of Zululand from 2000 before she was removed by the IFP in 2009 and sent to the provincial legislature as an MPL.

"I was removed before I finished my second term of office, and that nullified all those years I had been in power. Now I want to be in power there for another 10 years," said Magwaza-Msibi, who spoke in Zulu.

While making clear that she wanted to erode the IFP's support base, she maintained that she still respected IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

"Nobody had thought that Zanele would ever leave the IFP, and nobody had worked for the IFP as much as Zanele. Nobody had loved (Buthelezi) like Zanele ... He was my leader, and I respect him."

She thanked the religious leaders and her supporters and urged them to work towards her party's victory. "May we be stronger as a party ... we must leave behind all that happened in the past. Some have asked me if my party's existence is to finish off the IFP, and I say, 'No political party is there to nurse another.'

"Every party is there to grow and contest and win elections. You can't grow and win without support. Our party's (mission) is to work for our people in a manner that no other party has done. The NFP is not an extension of another organisation," she said.