KwaZulu-Natal is once again a theatre in which tradition, state power and electoral calculation converge. At the centre stands Thulasizwe Buthelezi: MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), traditional prime minister (uNdunankulu) to King Misuzulu kaZwelithini, and an ambitious figure within the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). His ascent is not just generational renewal after Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s passing. It signals a strategic reconfiguration of authority, blending administrative control with revived ethnonational symbolism.
The dual offices matter. As COGTA MEC, Buthelezi oversees municipalities and interfaces directly with traditional leadership structures. As uNdunankulu, he occupies a constitutionally recognised yet politically potent bridge between monarchy and state. In a province where millions reside on Ingonyama Trust land and where traditional councils remain embedded in governance, this “double-hatting” givesfew politicians the leverage they possess. It allows coordination of symbolic legitimacy and budgetary authority within a single political project.
Critics argue that this architecture is being used to strengthen a loyalist network. Allegations persist that the MEC portfolio is quietly influencing traditional appointments and disciplinary procedures in ways that benefit allies and amiableindividuals across the province. Whether or not each claim withstands scrutiny, the structural possibility is undeniable: control of COGTA equals control of rural political capital. In a competitive electoral environment, this capital becomes crucial and could elevate Buthelezi to prominence. That appears to be what motivates his political ambitions, at least in his mind.
The context is the IFP’s electoral squeeze. The rise of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) under Jacob Zuma fractured the so-called Zulu vote in 2024. The MKP mobilised grievance, memory and masculine traditionalism with remarkable speed. After the deaths of Mangosuthu Buthelezi and King Zwelithini, Zuma has been widely perceived as a new dominant proponent of Zulu nationalism in KZN, an image reinforced by MKP’s electoral performance. The symbolic vacuum did not remain empty but was contested.
In that sense, Thulasizwe Buthelezi is not only manoeuvring for IFP leadership or echoing his namesake’s 1970s strategy of ethnic consolidation. He is also targeting Zuma as the contemporary face of “Zuluness” in the province. The struggle is therefore representational: who embodies the political centre of the Zulu nation? Who mediates between the monarchy, the administration and the electorate? This strategy promises three interconnected gains: entrenching his position as uNdunankulu, re-centring the IFP as the primary vehicle of Zulu politics, and securing a durable Zulu hegemony within the provincial administration.
The proposal to rename KwaZulu-Natal to “KwaZulu” must be read within this context. Formally, it is presented as decolonial correction, shedding “Natal,” a colonial signifier. Substantively, it reactivates the memory of the KwaZulu bantustan, and that memory is not neutral. KwaZulu was not a restored precolonial kingdom but a territorially fragmented homeland within apartheid’s architecture of indirect rule.
Buthelezi is rumoured to be behind King Misuzulu’s call for the name change, evoking Mangosuthu’s political grammar of paramountcy. In Mahmood Mamdani’s terms, this reflects the strategic deployment of chiefly authority as an intermediary sovereign, positioned between state and community, through which the logic of indirect rule is positioned as cultural guardianship rather than administrative control.
Here, the language of paramountcy becomes instructive. Under colonial indirect rule, the figure of the “paramount chief” was not simply a custodian of culture but an administrative node, an intermediary through whom the state governed subjects rather than citizens. Mamdani’s analysis of the African postcolony reminds us that indirect rule institutionalised a bifurcated state. Citizens governed by civil law in urban spaces, and subjects ruled through customary authority in rural domains. Post-apartheid South Africa did not abolish this architecture but constitutionalised and moderated it.
KwaZulu-Natal embodies that tension. Millions live under traditional jurisdictions where authority flows through hereditary lines and where governance is mediated by customary institutions. The 1996 Constitution establishes representative democracy based on universal suffrage, yet simultaneously recognises hereditary traditional leadership grounded in birth rather than election. The compromise was pragmatic and stabilising. But it entrenched dual authority within a single constitutional framework, and does not ensure maximum safeguards to protect the masses from “tinpot dictatorships.”
When provincial identity is re-centred around “KwaZulu,” that bifurcation is symbolically intensified. The territorial logic of customary sovereignty, rooted in the idiom of the paramount chief and the hierarchy beneath him, sits alongside constitutional citizenship. One may be equal at the ballot box yet unequal in everyday governance. Mamdani’s ‘citizen’ versus ‘subject’ distinction is not a theoretical abstraction buta lived administrative reality.
The strategy has precedent. Mangosuthu’s rise was not rooted in automatic hereditary entitlement but in the deliberate construction of authority at the intersection of homeland administration, party machinery and royal symbolism. “Zuluness” functioned less as organic nationalism than as a political resource. When national leverage diminished, ethnic consolidation deepened. The monarchy, bureaucratic structures and party networks fused into a coherent legitimacy narrative.
Today’s context differs: there is no bantustan sovereignty, no apartheid patronage system, but structural continuities endure. First, traditional leadership retains constitutional recognition. Second, the Ingonyama Trust land sustains material authority.And third, provincial politics remains deeply rural and largely in the hands of chiefs, which is Thulasizwe Buthelezi’s terrain. In that environment, a project that symbolically completes the “KwaZulu” narrative can stabilise a party facing urban erosion.
Premier Thami Ntuli’s perceived marginalisation reflects this recalibration. While he formally heads the provincial executive, Thulasizwe Buthelezi’s proximity to the King and his COGTA portfolio grant him an independent axis of influence. This arrangement brings back memories of a Bantustan Chief Minister and a Paramount Chief, who exercised unbridled power at the people’s expense, but the Big State is absent. The narrative that the premier is “powerless” may overstate the case, but it captures a shifting centre of gravity: legitimacy flows not only through cabinet hierarchy but through traditional recognition.
The risk is not cultural affirmation but a serious constitutional strain. When ethnonational symbolism aligns with territorially grounded customary authority, the “citizen” versus “subject”divide becomes politically salient. Those residing under traditional jurisdictions may find their political futures shaped by actors whose authority derives from lineage rather than ballot. Democratic accountability, in such a setting, is filtered through patronage and custom rather than direct electoral sanction.
Supporters counter that identity mobilisation is legitimate democratic politics. They argue that MKP’s surge proved that voters respond to recognition and cultural pride. If the IFP does not institutionalise “Zuluness,” others will radicalise it. From this vantage point, Thulasizwe Buthelezi’s project is defensive consolidation within the bounds of the law.
Yet history counsels caution. The violence of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Natal was not primordial; it was elite competition mediated through ethnicity and state structures. When identity becomes administrative infrastructure rather than cultural expression, the distance between mobilisation and coercion narrows. The province carries that memory, and it refuses to go away. These conditions are fertile for what uNdunankulu desires for the future.
The coalition’s calculations raise the stakes. Renaming a province requires a constitutional amendment and national consensus. Overall, success seems unlikely at this stage. However, at the provincial level, the symbolic battle might still succeed: solidifying a “true Zulu” narrative before the 2026 local elections and reaffirming the IFP as the main mediator between monarchy and state.
Thulasizwe Buthelezi thus embodies a paradox. He is neither a mere technocrat nor a replica of the other Buthelezi. He operates within a constitutional democracy yet draws from a repertoire shaped by homeland governance and paramountcy politics. His method is modern, aiming for budgetary control, legislative manoeuvre and coalition leverage, but his symbolic grammar is traditional.
Whether this becomes a durable power base or a fleeting gambit depends on two variables. First, can symbolic consolidation translate into measurable governance performance? Second, can KwaZulu-Natal sustain plural belonging in the face of renewed ethnic centralisation?
Zulu identity continues to be challenged, disputed and contested from all fronts. However, when nationalism shifts to an administrative strategy and the language of the Paramount Chief overshadows constitutional citizenship, the boundary between cultural recognition and political exclusion blurs. If the renaming debate serves as a means to consolidate patronage and push constitutional limits, the province might face not renewal but decline.
KwaZulu-Natal needs new political players with vision, and the notion of ‘divine right of kings’ must be eliminated from its body politic.
Siya yi banga le economy!