NFP in KwaZulu-Natal hits back at ‘attention seeker’ Shinga over court threat

National Freedom Party (NFP) chairperson Mbali Shinga’s threat to use the courts to defend what she calls members’ constitutional rights has drawn a fierce response from the party’s KwaZulu-Natal leadership.

The National Freedom Party (NFP) in KwaZulu-Natal has slammed the party’s chairperson, Mbali Shinga, over what it described as her alleged “childish conduct” and labelled her an “attention seeker” after she warned that she was prepared to take the party’s internal battles to court.

She said she was prepared to go to court as tensions with suspended NFP president Ivan Barnes and the national leadership escalated ahead of the November 4 local government elections.

Shinga briefed the media on Monday, saying she had exhausted attempts to resolve her dispute with the party through dialogue, and would now defend what she described as the constitutional rights of NFP members and elected structures through every lawful avenue available to her.

“The gloves are off, but our weapons remain the NFP Constitution, the law, the courts where necessary, the democratic rights of our members and ultimately the will of the people.

“We are ready to defend legitimate branch nominations, properly constituted candidate processes and members who are targeted not because they violated the rules, but because somebody has decided that their political association makes them undesirable,” Shinga said.

Her comments come amid an ongoing political and legal dispute between her and the NFP’s national leadership over her membership, political positions and continued representation in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature.

The dispute escalated after the national leadership purported to expel Shinga from the party and sought to have her removed from the provincial legislature.

Shinga said she had exercised her constitutional right to approach the courts and that a High Court order on June 18 interdicted the Speaker from giving effect to the NFP’s attempt to remove her, pending the determination of the internal appeal process.

She said the NFP subsequently acknowledged the authority of the order and indicated that she would be given an opportunity to appeal before the National Working Committee.

However, Shinga said the national leadership later informed her that the NWC had upheld her expulsion and subsequently wrote to the Speaker, seeking her removal from the legislature and the deployment of Barnes in her place.

Shinga maintained that she remained the NFP’s provincial chairperson in KZN, having been elected to the position in Newcastle on September 30, 2023.

“I am the Provincial Chairperson of the NFP in KwaZulu-Natal, as elected by the people in Newcastle on 30 September 2023,” she said, adding that the dispute had, however, grown beyond her own position and was now affecting the wider organisation.

In response, the NFP said in a media statement that it was “dismayed by the childish conduct” of Shinga and insisted that she had been expelled as the party’s KZN chairperson.