The trouble-torn National Freedom Party (NFP) in KwaZulu-Natal has fired one of its founding members, Jeremiah Mavundla. Mavundla, a former acting president of the party, also had his membership terminated. Party president Ivan Barnes confirmed Mavundla was given the boot.
Barnes accused Mavundla of being inactive and failing to renew his membership despite repeated requests. Barnes told the former mayor that his time was up. “It has been noted that you have been inactive nor have [you] responded to communication,” reads the letter sent to Mavundla.
Barnes said the party tried to reach the former leader through the national organiser in October, to no avail. The letter informed Mavundla that he was no longer a member in good standing as he had not renewed his membership. Mavundla was one of the key figures who broke away from the IFP with the late Zanele Magwaza-Msibi in 2011.
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He helped the party win control of Nongoma in northern KZN and served as its first mayor. He also served as acting president of the NFP after Magwaza-Msibi died. The party has been torn apart by internal fighting and the jostling for positions that comes amid a potential schism in the government of provincial unity (GPU) as the MK Party’s December 15 motion of no confidence against premier Thami Ntuli looms.
The divisions in the party were laid bare when KZN party MPL Mbali Shinga defied Barnes’s directive to support the motion against Ntuli. Ntuli heads the GPU in the 80-member provincial legislature ultimately thanks to Shinga’s decisive vote.
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