By Celani Sikhakhane
National Freedom Party (NFP) president, Ivan Barnes, has been appointed as a councillor in the Zululand municipality. The party plans to make him mayor to replace the IFP’s Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi.
This comes after the NFP demanded the IFP give them the Zululand and uThukela districts in exchange for their vote to support Thami Ntuli’s election as KZN premier.
During negotiations with the NFP, the IFP rejected the party’s request to be given the two district municipalities. They said the talks were not about local government but the national and provincial spheres.
That position has not changed. But when talks resume, Barnes, as a councillor, will already be part of the municipality.
Barnes led the NFP negotiations ahead of the formation of the KZN government, which consists of the ANC, DA, IFP and NFP.
An Independent Electoral Commission letter dated 20 June, sent to the Zululand district municipality, noted that Barnes was officially declared a municipal councillor.
“Councillor Barnes replaces Cllr Sibusiso Nkosi, who ceased to hold office as a councillor in the district,” the IEC letter reads.
Barnes told journalists in Umhlanga, near Durban, that the NFP is interested in governing Zululand and uThukela.
The NFP governed the Zululand municipality in 2011 under its late leader, Zanele kaMagwaza-Msibi, who was also mayor at the time.
When she left the district in 2014, the party appointed Mpiyakhe Hlatshwayo, but they lost control of the municipality in 2016 after failing to contest the elections.
Barnes, who comes from student politics and led the IFP-aligned South African Democratic Students Movement, grew up in the IFP and left the party in 2011 to join the NFP with kaMagwaza-Msibi. He had worked as a director at the Nongoma local municipality.
He was elected in December to replace the late kaMagwaza-Msibi as president of the NFP at its elective conference in Durban. Most of those who challenged his election have resigned from the NFP to form their own political parties.
Canaan Mdletshe, the NFP’s secretary-general, recently left the party after he complained about its decision to join the Government of National Unity.
Pictured above: NFP president Ivan Barnes is now a councillor in the Zululand municipality.
Source: Celani Sikhakhane
