COALITION POLTICSClear as mud — Inside the NFP’s high-stakes game in KwaZulu-NatalThe National Freedom Party is the kingmaker in KZN, but after the failed attempt to oust the provincial government, it’s unclear whether it wants in or out.ByGreg Ardé

The National Freedom Party is the kingmaker in KZN, but after the failed attempt to oust the provincial government, it’s unclear whether it wants in or out. Leaders of the lesser-known National Freedom Party (NFP) held a two-hour press conference in Durban on Friday, 9 January, but it is unclear exactly what the KwaZulu-Natal kingmakers want. “We will remain in opposition until we are re-engaged by parties that want to govern KZN.

We will not sell our souls this time around,” party president Ivan Barnes said. Earlier, he told journalists: “There is no agreement between the NFP, MK party [uMkhonto Wesizwe party] and the Economic Freedom Fighters with regard to governing KZN.” Barnes appears to have consolidated control of his fractured party, which sided with the EFF and MK in a failed bid to wrest control of the provincial legislature on 15 December. Mbali Shinga, the NFP’s sole MPL, was the only obstacle to those three parties’ securing a majority over Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) members, led by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and including the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA).

Barnes and NFP party leaders, who initially agreed to join the GPU, say Shinga has gone rogue. They have suspended her membership for three months pending the outcome of a three-day disciplinary hearing next week. She defied Barnes and others in her party when they ordered her to turn her back on the GPU she serves to support the MK party’s takeover bid. Flanked by NFP leaders, including acting secretary-general Sunset Xaba and deputy KZN secretary Zethembe Ngobese, Barnes denied the party had a leadership crisis.