About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP)

In mid-1990 Mangosuthu Buthelezi announced that Inkatha* would become a political party to be called the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). It would stand for multi-party, non-racial democracy and a free market system. A scandal that broke out in 1991 indicated that the party's funding came from conservative sources in Germany and from the South African government, a fact which damaged Buthelezi's credibility on the eve of the pre-election talks. Although Buthelezi signed the National Peace Accord in September 1991, he objected strongly to several clauses of the Record of Understanding, an agreement between the ANC* and De Klerk that among other things, prevented IFP members from carrying traditional weapons in public. In 1993 the IFP pulled out of the constitutional talks at Kempton Park when its call for a federal system was rejected. Despite such misgivings the IFP did contest the 1994 election, and won 10 per cent of the vote. Buthelezi became Minister of Home Affairs in the Government of National Unity.

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