The IEC's recent endorsement has strengthened the position of embattled NFP President Ivan Barnes within the party.
Image: Supplied
The NFP is walking tall following the reaffirmation of the current leadership by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) as legitimate.
Last week, the party announced that it had uncovered a plot to prevent it from contesting the upcoming local government elections by removing the current leadership as the recognised structure.
In last week's statement, the party’s Acting Secretary-General, Sunset Xaba, had said that the plot was hatched by 15 disgruntled party members who approached the commission.
He pointed out that the intention was to remove the names of the current leadership as accountable officials and prevent the party from contesting the elections.
However, in a letter to the party’s attorney on Thursday, the commission reaffirmed Ivan Barnes and his national executive committee as duly elected officials of the party in an elective conference in 2023, dismissing an attempt to delegitimise them.
The commission said its recognition of the current leadership is consistent with the Pietermaritzburg High Court judgment, which dismissed the application challenging the election of the leadership in 2024 and a subsequent appeal in 2025.
“Taking the above orders and judgments into consideration, the Electoral Commission’s (“the Commission”) records reflect the leadership of the NFP as that being elected at the National Elective Conference held 15 - 17 December 2023, wherein Ivan Barnes was appointed as the party leader.
“Therefore, save for any subsequent changes, if any, which have been made by the leadership cohort of the NFP as decided by the above orders, any request for party information should be requested from the party itself,” read the letter.
Xaba said the leadership is happy with the commission’s confirmation of the leadership and blamed Teddy Thwala for trying to overthrow the current leadership with underhanded tactics.
Thwala confirmed approaching the commission; however, he dismissed the claim that he wanted to overthrow the leadership.
He said that all he wanted was to get the audited financial statements, claiming that he has a right to access them as a member, as well as a taxpayer.
“It's not true that we wanted to remove their names. We went there to see whether the leadership is accounting to the commission for funds it receives from the commission, not that we wanted to deregister them,” said Thwala.
He was elected as the secretary-general alongside Barnes in the 2023 conference and later fell out with the leadership.
willem.phungula@inl.co.za