The Inkatha Freedom Party could be on track to make a major political comeback in next week's local government elections.

The party is expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the National Freedom Party's disqualification from the elections.The NFP governs Zululand District Municipality and three of its local entities, Nongoma, Pongola and Dumbe, and co-governs with the ANC in 14 hung municipalities in the province.The NFP has exhausted all legal avenues to be reinstated after it failed to pay the Independent Electoral Commission deposit on time. Most of the party's million-plus voters are now expected to transfer their loyalty back to their former home, the IFP.IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi has intensified his campaign in a last push to win back lost ground.story_article_left1This week he made several appearances on the campaign trail, handing out pizzas at a Durban school and addressing a business summit and two rallies in Limpopo and Zululand, all the while protruding through the sunroof of his BMW X5.The IFP's message to KwaZulu-Natal voters is "sethembe" (trust us).IFP national chairman Blessed Gwala said NFP members' return to the IFP had been going on for a while ."Every day they are coming back home en masse. We haven't measured how many have come back recently following the NFP's disqualification," he said.Asked how many municipalities the IFP was expecting to win, Gwala said: "We never count our chicks before they hatch. The IFP is doing its best to retain what it has and to bring back those municipalities that were taken away by the ANC/NFP coalition and also to take other municipalities from the ANC," he said.The NFP's absence spells trouble for the ANC in some of the strategic regions it wants to govern. ANC spokesman Mdumiseni Ntuli said this month: "This is war, we are going to an election."ANC provincial secretary Super Zuma said the NFP's exclusion was regrettable ."The ANC ... believes in political plurality and the absence of the NFP from the upcoming elections will make the province poorer in terms of electoral choices presented to the voters."..