JOHANNESBURG: Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a Zulu nationalist leader who presided over South Africa’s deadliest violence ahead of the first multiracial elections in 1994, died on Saturday aged 95, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

“I am deeply saddened to announce the passing of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi … Traditional Prime Minister to the Zulu Monarch and Nation, and the Founder and President Emeritus of the Inkatha Freedom Party.” Ramaphosa said in a statement.

“Prince Buthelezi, who served as the democratic South Africa’s first Minister of Home Affairs, passed away in the early hours of today, Saturday, 9 September 2023, just two weeks after the celebration of his 95th birthday.” the head of state said.

Born of royal blood on August 27, 1928, Buthelezi epitomized the proud, warrior spirit of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Zulus.

Buthelezi was a hereditary chief of the Zulus, South Africa’s largest ethnic group. He was also the prime minister of KwaZulu, the Zulu homeland, and founder of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

Initially a member of the historic ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), he founded the IFP in 1975, initially formed as a Zulu cultural organisation.

The rivalry between the the ANC and IFP later proved deadly.

Turf wars

“Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been an outstanding leader in the political and cultural life of our nation, including the ebbs and flows of our liberation struggle, the transition which secured our freedom in 1994 and our democratic dispensation,” Ramaphosa said.

The IFP, which Buthelezi led for over 40 years, waged deadly territorial wars with the ANC in black-majority townships of the 1980s and 1990s.

Over 5,000 people were killed in the violence.

Buthelezi was accused of playing into the hands of white power by inciting violence against the ANC just before the first multiracial elections in 1994.

Thin, slender, with rectangular glasses on his nose, Buthelezi often covered himself in leopard skins, a Zulu tradition, to lead Inkatha parades in his strongholds in Johannesburg or Durban.

Buthelezi also actively mediated in the succession squabbles following the death of the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini in 2021.

He aged with his gutsy demeanour right until his last days, fiercely protecting the Zulu monarchy.

But soon after the new king was crowned, reports of a rift with Buthelezi started to emerge, pointing to a waning influence at court.

Debilitated and barely able to walk, the once-feared leader stood hunched back and small, a shadow of his former self, peering at the crowd over his glasses perched on his nose, as he attended the Zulu annual reed dance in September 2022.