CORRECTION OF MEDIA DISTORTIONS ON "IFP LEADERSHIP CRISIS"
Following last week's statement from our former National Organiser Mr Albert Mncwango that he was resigning with immediate effect from the position of National Organiser and the Party's response to it, some sections of the media have created a very unfair and untruthful picture that the IFP is in a crisis, which sees many leaders leaving the Party.
Those who advance this unfortunate theory quote Mrs Zanele KaMagwaza Msibi, Mr Thulasizwe Buthelezi, Dr Bonginkosi Buthelezi, Rev Musa Zondi and Mr Mncwango as leaders who have ditched the Party, which in their view proves that indeed the IFP is in a crisis.
As a member of the Party assigned the duty of Deputy National Spokesperson, I feel compelled to respond to these wrong perceptions which have the potential to sow confusion and despondency among the ranks of our Party, in the hope that those who are spreading them will desist.
I want to show that these conclusions are nothing but utter lies, spread by those who have misinterpreted - deliberately or not - what has happened in the IFP. I will look at each case to show that these leaders cannot be lumped together as though their cases are the same.
a) Mrs KaMagwaza Msibi lost her case in a Court of Law. Her intention was not to leave the IFP; rather she hoped that the Court would force the party to convene the national conference. Having failed in court, she ran away to the NFP, instead of coming back to face the issues that awaited her in the party's National Council of which she was the Chairperson.
b) Mr Thulasizwe Buthelezi resigned from all leadership positions because he wanted to pursue other interests.
c) Dr Bonginkosi Buthelezi likewise resigned from all leadership positions because he wanted to pursue other interests.
d) Rev Zondi is still the IFP's Secretary-General, Member of the NEC, National Council and Parliament. He has not resigned from any position. All he said was that he will serve the Party in all his positions until the Conference when his term will in any case be coming to the end. He will not then be available to stand for any position thereafter.
e) Mr Mncwango is still a member of the National Council and Parliament. He has not left any position. What happened was that he was asked to step down from the position of National Organiser because the party wanted to employ someone who will work in that position full-time.
From all these factual accounts it is clear that it is disingenuous for anyone to lump all of these leaders together as though they did one and the same thing. Of the five, only one is no longer in the IFP, Mrs KaMagwaza Msibi. Only two left their positions, the Buthelezis. The last two senior leaders are still very much part of all IFP activities.
Lastly, even if all these individual had deserted the Party, it would still be a biased hyperbole to say that the IFP is in a crisis of losing many leaders, because the IFP's highest leadership organ besides the Conference - the National Council - consists of just less than hundred leaders. Five out of about hundred cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be said to be many to the extent of signalling a crisis. I hope this clarification will dispel the mist that obviously confuses some in the media. Unless it is part of a deliberate campaign to ensure the death of the IFP.
Statement issued by M. Joshua Mazibuko, IFP Deputy National Spokesperson, January 19 2012
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