Barnes set for KZN legislature entry as NFP reshuffle shakes GPU balance

By Sihle Mavuso

National Freedom Party (NFP) leader Ivan Barnes is set to make a triumphant entry to the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, a move that could alter the dynamics of the province’s Government of Provincial Unity (GPU).

Barnes’s entry moved closer on Monday after Speaker Nontembeko Boyce accepted a directive from the NFP to remove Social Development MEC Mbali Shinga, who held the party’s sole seat in the 80-member legislature in Pietermaritzburg.

Shinga’s removal follows the conclusion of a protracted internal disciplinary process over the weekend.

The party’s appeals board upheld her expulsion after she was found to have defied a directive to support the MK Party (Umkhonto Wesizwe Party) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in a December 15 vote aimed at ousting IFP leader Thami Ntuli as KwaZulu-Natal premier.

In a letter dated June 1, Boyce informed Shinga that she was now deemed to have ceased being a member