The NFP has been plagued by infighting since the death of its founder, Zanele Magwaza Msibi, in 2021. (Photo: Garo Images/Sowetan/Mohau Mofokeng)
The Pietermaritzburg High Court has granted an interim injunction preventing National Freedom Party (NFP) leader Ivan Burns from suspending or firing the party's general secretary, Teddy Swala.
The court also extended an earlier injunction in a separate claim brought by 13 NFP officials, including eThekwini deputy mayor Zandile Myeni, for serving a suspension notice on Mr Barnes.
The injunction is a double blow to Burns' faction within the NFP, which has been beset by an internal power struggle since the death of founding leader Zanele Magwaza Msibi in 2021.
The selection of both Twala and Burns at a conference to be held in December 2023, which the South African Electoral Commission imposed as a precondition for participation in the May 29 general election, will be challenged separately in court.
As a result of last week's ruling, there will be no further attempts to remove Twala until the case and any subsequent appeals are heard in court on January 25 next year.
In the Twala matter, Acting Judge Murray Pitman issued an interim order restraining Mr Burns and the NFP national working committee from suspending him or taking any disciplinary action against him, pending the outcome of a challenge to the validity of the December meeting at which the two men were selected.
Twala was suspended for failing to attend committee meetings and causing “disorder” within the party, and Burns has accused him of trying to disrupt the party's participation in May's elections.
Meanwhile, he accused Mr Burns of deliberately holding a meeting of the National Working Committee without inviting him and other members in order to manipulate the process to illegally exclude him and other members.
Judge Pittman also granted an interim order in response to Mr Twala's request to prohibit SLK Lawyers, which represented NFP in the matter, from continuing to represent the company.
Twala asked the court to intervene because the firm had represented him in several cases relating to internal NFP disputes since 2018, and to report the firm to the Legal Services Council for conduct he called “unlawful”.
In a separate hearing, the court also extended an injunction previously taken against Mr Burns and the NFP national committee by party leaders and councillors who were suspended by the party's leadership just days before the May 29 election was held.
Both parties have been ordered to file briefs by the end of October, after which the court will place them on the record of the opposing proceedings.
The NFP was formed in 2011 when Magwaza Msibi and his supporters broke away from the Inkatha Freedom Party and has since maintained a presence at provincial and municipal government level in KwaZulu-Natal.
However, since her death the NFP has been plagued by internal fighting and after the May 29 election it has just one seat in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial legislature.
The province holds the balance of power in parliament, giving the provincial government led by the IFP's Thami Ntuli a narrow and fragile majority over the opposition led by the provincial Umkhonto we'Sizwe party.