The announcement made by the new face of the IFP, Velenkosini Hlabisa, in a Bloemfontein briefing held at the Southern Sun Hotel on Friday, comes on the back of the dissolution of the Tshwane council by the Gauteng provincial government last week.

Following the announcement of the dissolution on 5 March by Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, by-elections must take place within a 90 day period. However, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has launched a North Gauteng High Court bid, to have the dissolution overturned, deeming the provincial government’s decision to do so, illegal.

Hlabisa on the other end believes the only way forward for the municipality is for by-elections to be held to enable the people of Tshwane to decide who they want in power. “We are hopeful, that the challenges at Tshwane will be resolved through a by-election. I am quite aware there is a court bid to prevent the dissolution of that municipality, but since there is no one who has a clear cut majority, the people of Tshwane will be delayed for too long, if there isn’t a rerun that will make the people of Tshwane decide who they want responsible for service delivery there” says the 55-year old IFP leader.

At the end of February, the Tshwane council failed to elect a new mayor in the wake of Stevens Mokgalapa’s resignation in January 2020, placing it in a predicament, as the council was yet to pass adjusted budgets. The DA’s Mokgalapa, resigned from his position after he found himself in the middle of a sex scandal, when an audio clip of him being intimate with the former Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) responsible for roads and transport in the embattled metro, Sheila Senkubuge, surfaced in late 2019, making headlines. Mokgalapa was suspended over the scandal and later resigned.

The DA of which Mokgalapa was a member, has accused, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the African National Congress (ANC) of deliberately sabotaging the process of electing a new mayor.

Now that Hlabisa is taking over the leadership reigns from the elderly, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the IFP is intensifying their efforts to expand its footprint in the country. He and members accompanying him on the Free State tour, will spend Saturday in the eastern Free State and round off their tour to the province in Vrede on Sunday. In April the IFP then heads to the Eastern Cape, where Hlabisa acknowledges there is strong resistance to the party, before heading to the Gauteng province.

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