Zulu party snubs ANC merger call

Jacob Zuma helped the ANC win in Kwa-Zulu Natal this year

A mainly Zulu opposition party has rejected South African President Jacob Zuma's offer to merge with his governing African National Congress.

The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the ANC have been arch-rivals for more than three decades.

The IFP has long dominated Mr Zuma's home province of Kwa-Zulu Natal but lost power there in the April elections after which Mr Zuma became president.

An IFP spokesman told the BBC that a merger was out of the question.

Reverend Musa Zondi described Mr Zuma's call as "putting the horse before the cart".

He said the two parties would need to resolve years of political issues before a merger would be possible.

'Swallowed'

He added, however, that his party had no problem with establishing good political relations.

"We are opposed to the idea of collapsing the IFP and swallowing it into the belly of the ANC," he said.

Mr Zuma said he had previously discussed the subject with IFP leader and founder, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, adding it was now time to resume the talks.

But Rev Zondi told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that this would not happen any time soon.

Mr Buthelezi founded the IFP in 1975 with the blessing of the ANC, after the latter was outlawed by the white minority government of the time.

But the BBC's Richard Hamilton says accusations that Inkatha was consorting with the apartheid government to oppress black South Africans led to a collapse in their relations and the bloodshed of thousands.

If the parties were to unite, he says it would mean a change in South Africa's political sphere, as it would consolidate the ANC's grip on power and weaken the main opposition, the mainly white Democratic Alliance.