If the 50-year-old IFP wants to grow further, it needs to “stop” and assess its performance in the previous years and ask itself serious questions, said Methodist Church of Southern Africa Bishop Linda Mandindi during the party’s anniversary event on Friday.
He was delivering a sermon and well-wishes to the party that the late statesman, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, co-founded in 1975 and launched in Melmoth, northern KwaZulu-Natal, where the ceremony was held on Friday.
“We must be reminded that as we celebrate the 21st of March (Human Rights Day), there are people who have not yet benefited from freedom.
“Human Rights Day is a day where we need to stop and ask ourselves serious questions,” he said.
Addressing dignitaries, including party president Velenkosini Hlabisa and its KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Thami Ntuli, Mandindi said it was a concern that the spirit of humanity was evaporating.
He questioned the leaders on how they predicted the next 50 years of the party.
“Is there a plan? I know that probably in the next coming conference, these are the questions that you are going to ask yourself. How do we evaluate, how do we assess?”
He said the party should stop and assess its leaders to see if all of them were still fit for the purpose.
“It is my prayer that you pay attention to the dashboard of the party, look at yourself holistically, look at all the programmes of the party, and know what is happening and who is responsible for what. Do they account?
“Your motto is resilient,” said Mandindi.
He said the party should assess if its leaders were strong enough to take it to the next level.
“Or you are going to repeat what you have been doing in the last 50 years. Are you going to engage in the argument you have engaged in, in the last 50 years or you are going to go back to the dashboard and see what is at stake and deal with that?
“The party was established for the betterment of the lives of the people who are underprivileged and the party put forward as its guiding principle that those who are members and leaders of the party must lead with integrity,” he said.
Ntuli, who is the premier in the Government of Provincial Unity, said the party was built on the strong foundation of Buthelezi, which was “spirituality and morality in our pursuit of a just and equitable society”.
“The IFP's founders were political leaders and spiritual leaders who recognised the power of faith in shaping our values and guiding our actions.
“They drew strength from their religious convictions, which inspired them to fight for the rights and dignity of our people,” he said.
Ntuli commended Buthelezi for refusing to join the armed Struggle against the apartheid, which he said was sponsored by Russia.
“Had he agreed, the Soviet Union would have shifted the anti-apartheid movement (IFP) away from a socio-political and civilian-led movement to a military operation.
“In the IFP, such a move was against the founding values of the IFP and was rightfully rejected.
“Numerous other attempts were made to persuade the IFP to take up arms, but these attempts also failed,” he said.
Ntuli added that although South Africa escaped the tipping point of the civil war during apartheid, it was now, in 2025, facing another ticking time bomb “where poverty threatens to loot away life as we know it”.
“The army of greed has reassembled against the people.
“Today, we reaffirm our party's commitment to the values of our party as we, too, face enormous socio-economic challenges that, at times, have driven the people into a state of desperation.
“In their desperation, the people have been easily misled into philosophies that have been proven time and time again to be the source of their misery and poverty,” said Ntuli.
He said the party recognised that the struggle for freedom and democracy was far from over.
“And we pledge to continue working tirelessly to address the challenges facing our communities.”