The Battle for the KZN vote has begun. Striking the balance.

The death of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has triggered not only the battle for the pivot of Zulu cultural and political life, the position of the Kingdom's Premiership but also a battle for a potentially politically stranded KwaZulu-Natal abaNTU vote. The speeches at uMtwana's memorial service, which in many ways assumed the status of parading a potential alternative, through coalition, to the ANC as the governing party, were choreographed to appease the KZN vote. 

 

Since the successes of opposition parties' coalitions against the ANC in local government in 2016 and 2021, leaders of opposition parties have realised the value of having their parties working together to undermine ANC hegemony wherever it threatens to renew itself. The death of Buthelezi, however, has made opposition leaders concerned about the potential advances of the ANC to capture the political soul of a Buthelezi-as-a-person specific voter constituency. In the last five years of Buthelezi's life, there have been signals of a preference by Buthelezi to have his ANCYL membership reinstated to 'correct' what he regarded as a distortion of history as he wanted it narrated. 

 

Youth formations and younger leaders have been playing the vital role of lowering in-KwaZulu Natal tensions and encouraging, through the office of King MisuZulu, mutual understanding within 'uZulu omnyama'. Notwithstanding a tormented past of killing each other, the ANC and IFP provincial establishments are finding, and where they don't exist, manufacturing, reasons to cooperate beyond what politically divides them. The familial relationships between key individuals in these organisations have created apolitical sponsored moments where common interests started to redefine the strained political relationships. 

 

Of course, there are significant differences between the dominant political parties today than during the anti-apartheid years. The understanding of Zulu nationalism as an essential mobilisation force to govern the whole territory of South Africa has brought the cognitive elites of KwaZulu Natal closer to each other than in any period of their history. The overlapping 'ethnic nationalist interests' of political leaders of all parties in KZN have complicated the question of how to oppose each other inservice delivery matters. The July 2021 events and the infrastructure-compromising floods that followed have demonstrated how the tensions of party politics have made collaboration in finding solutions to problems sensitive. 

 

One of the strategic ways this battle for the KwaZulu Natal vote is fought is by making the whole of the territory of South Africa Nguni vote a critical determinant of who leads South Africa. The Buthelezi legacy linked and apartheid separate development policy justification successes have now been elevated to a level where the post-1994 democratic order is judged against. The emerging density of the post-Buthelezi death political rhetoric suggests that the continuum of his legacy has always been as innocent as the corpse. The political turtles of KZN have also become a potent force in this battle for the Zulu vote. 

 

Unfortunately for the governing ANC, which has historically identified tribalism as a demon to be fought to anchor any future political stability of South Africa, the repercussions of how the legal system has treated or been treating its immediate past President, Jacob Zuma, under its executive authority watch, might have created an artificial sieve within which opposing the ANC makes regional political sense. This problematic circumstance might be why the official government stance has become the most important crucial narrative the ANC adopted to navigate an otherwise 2024 National Elections defining funeral service of uMtwana Ka Phindangene. His memorialisation by the state managed to avoid it being a dimension of the ANC gift of political campaigning platform. 

 

It is a known fact that the liberation movement identity of the ANC is a hegemonic asset all opposition parties are working hard to undermine in the hearts and minds of South Africans. The ability of a Buthelezi-led IFP to carve 'no-go areas for the ANC and stand up against it has been hailed to have been the only bulwark with which the difficult-to-liquidate liberation movement legacy can be undermined. Cultural cooperation, in KZN or amongst the Zulus, is an essential form of political mobilisation, opposition politics diplomacy, and an ethnic nationalist feeling. Once the regional elites begin working together for the higher cause of regional dominance, activists and the entire cognitive elite constituencies, including those with long-standing animosities, often overcome their other biases and learn to respect each other as a cultural unit. 

 

The connections forged in village-boy or girl settings, 'isigodi solidarity', can have enormous political coalition-forming consequences. The 'umkhaya' trust relationships that the KZN networks established while considering purely cultural issues have already demonstrated their potency in how they helped lead to the peace initiatives and agreements that ended the near civil war IFP/ANC violence of the 90s. As INkosi Buthelezi's mortal remains negotiate with his immortal legacy, the fragile democratic order that South Africa needs to forge a relationship with the reality of the growing regional rigidities defining our national politics. 

 

Pursuing political power through unprincipled coalitions will be more of a risk to the decay than when it is circumcised to pursue peaceful co-existence. Tradition-intensive events such as the burial of INkosi Buthelezi are uniquely able to build bridges where they could never have existed. This is simply because we all share the language of sorrow, and the institutions and rituals we employ to help us transcend the solemn moments of grief create capsules within which we are squashed into one national mourning moment. Let the battle for votes strike this balance. CUT!!!