- Speaker Nontembeko Boyce stopped the swearing in of National Freedom Party (NFP) president Ivan Barnes, planned for Thursday, 22 October, after Mbali Shinga applied to appeal a court order.
- The swearing in could have helped the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party and the EFF take over the KwaZulu-Natal government from the IFP, ANC, DA and NFP.
KwaZulu-Natal Legislature Speaker Nontembeko Boyce has stopped the swearing in of National Freedom Party (NFP) president Ivan Barnes, which could have changed who runs the province.
Barnes was due to be sworn in on Thursday, 22 October, to replace NFP member Mbali Shinga in the legislature.
The NFP asked for Shinga to be replaced. On 15 September, Justice Mngadi ordered the Speaker to swear in the next person on the party’s list.
Shinga then applied for leave to appeal the order. The application was handed to the legislature on Wednesday, 21 October.
Boyce wrote to NFP secretary general Sunset Xaba that afternoon. She said section 18 of the Superior Courts Act pauses a court order while an application to appeal is decided.
Boyce said the legislature will take no further steps to carry out the order until the application, and any appeal that follows, is decided, unless a court says otherwise. That includes Barnes’s swearing in. She also said Shinga remains a member of the legislature for now.
The uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party and the EFF hoped Barnes’s seat would give them the numbers to take over from the Government of Provincial Unity, made up of the IFP, ANC, DA and NFP.
The MK party had already started planning who would sit in its cabinet, as it was sure Barnes’s swearing in would swing the numbers its way.
Barnes wanted to be MEC for economic development, a post now held by Musa Zondi of the IFP. Under the plan, the traditional prime minister to the Zulu monarch, Inkosi Phathisizwe Chiliza, was set to be voted in as premier of an MK-led government.
