Celani Sikhakhane
Has the great party of Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli and Oliver Tambo come to this?
Five years ago, the National Freedom Party (NFP) campaigned for the ANC in Zululand during local government elections after they missed the deadline to pay the election deposit to the IEC.
Now NFP leaders in Zululand believe that it’s payback time for the ANC.
They say the ruling party must campaign for them.
Reeling from financial chaos, the ANC failed to meet the deadline to submit the names of its candidates for the 19 wards in Zululand.
Zululand is just one of 35 municipalities in which the cash-strapped party failed to submit its list of candidates in time, following a strike of party employees who had not been paid for three months in a row.
The NFP’s Sphamandla Ntombela in Zululand said they are not celebrating this unfortunate event but they think it’s God’s plan to humble the ANC.
“In 2016 we took a compromised decision to sell our souls as the party by campaigning for the ANC. We made an agreement with its leaders that we will bring more votes in Zululand then in return they will give us two seats in each municipality,” Ntombela told Scrolla.Africa.
However, Ntombela maintains that after the elections, the ANC didn’t honour its end of the deal.
“The ANC leadership changed their mind and Nomsa Dube Ncube told us that we should take the ANC membership in order to get those seats,” he said.
“We gave them Zululand and other strongholds of the IFP but they decided to turn against us. All we want this time is that they must come on board and campaign for us as the NFP.”
ANC’s Nhlakanipho Ntombela says it’s too early for the NFP to talk about this issue because the Constitutional Court has yet to decide on the date of the elections.
“First of all, they have not come to us to talk about this, so we are not bothered. We are now waiting for the Constitutional Court to decide and remember what is going to happen next,” said Ntombela.
