Registration of delegates attending the Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) eagerly awaited KwaZulu-Natal provincial conference is underway at Ulundi in the north of the province.
The last conference was held in 2011 and the subsequent conference was supposed to have been held in 2014.
The reasons cited by the party not to have convened the conference in 2014, was the mushrooming of bogus branches.
The position of a chairperson is contested by Mbangiseni Yengwa and Nkandla Mayor Thamsanqa Ntuli.
IFP National spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa says they expect a successful conference characterised by matured democratic contestation.
“We were confronted with a challenge of escalation of bogus branches, tensions and divisions which could not have made it conducive for us to the hold conference consistent with the constitution of the IFP. Audit of the party structures took priority and we have duly done that and as we announced in January we were ready to hold the conference, but we had to make a decision do we go to conference or we focus on elections. The extended National Council said the party must focus on elections and after the elections, we must go to conferences hence we are here today. So we have cleaned our hold and got our ducks in the row and it all systems go.”
