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Limpopo province has also been inundated with traditional leadership disputes. In this province, disgruntled leaders have accused former premier, Stanley Mathabatha, of bias that has wedged deep divisions among royal families.

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Sizwe sama Yende

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The cabinets of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal have taken steps to intervene and resolve traditional disputes with the appointment a commission of inquiry and a task team.

These decisions mean that instability and squabbles continue to reign supreme in traditional communities in these two provinces. Limpopo is another province engulfed in incessant chieftaincy disputes.

More than a decade ago, former president Thabo Mbeki appointed the Nhlapo Commission to investigate traditional disputes. This commission succeeded in resolving kingship disputes, but it may seem that many disputes at chieftaincy level still engulf traditional communities.

Mpumalanga premier, Mandla Ndlovu, has appointed a Commission of Inquiry recently.

Ndlovu told The People’s Eye this week that his office was inundated with complaints, hence he decided to appoint the commission. He mentioned the Mawewe and Mnisi chieftaincy disputes.

“Traditional disputes will never end and there are always new issues on succession. They will continue to fight. If you deal with these issues every day, you can’t do your work, even the MEC for Cogta (Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) will not be able to work if he must pay attention to these issues every day,” he said.

“They come to me every day … the Mawewe and the Mnisis who are killing each other. Even the deputy judge president (Segopotje Mphahlele) told me she is dealing with these issues. You would think after Nhlapo Commission they would rest, but they dispute the recommendations of the commissions,” Ndlovu added.

DEADLY CHIEFTAINCY DISPUTES

The Mawewe chieftaincy dispute is between Chief Khulile Mkhatshwa who is traditional leader recognised by the Mpumalanga government, and her half-brother, Candice Mkhatshwa. Candice claims he is the bona fide chief of the Mawewe tribal authority.

The rivalry has also affected the running of the R261.4 million prime agricultural and mining land in Nkomazi that was restituted to the tribal community in 2010.

Chief Mkhatshwa and her mother, Indlovukati Eva Mkhatshwa (LaMbokazi), have gone to court claiming that the farming businesses on the land were hijacked by rogue Communal Property Association members, and were not benefiting them or other community members associated with their faction.

Mkhatshwa has been under heavy 24-hour guard, while LaMbokazi has gone into hiding, fearing for her life. Seven people close to the royal family have been fatally shot by hitmen since 2018. Among the victims were Chief Mkhatshwa’s aunt and sister.

Matters got worse in the Mnisi Tribal Authority in Bushbuckridge when Chief Clyde Magwagwaza Mnisi was assassinated in a hail of bullets in March 2023.

After the death of Mnisi’s father, Hosi Phillip Mnisi, in 2013, the royal family was embroiled in a bitter dispute.

Last month, KwaZulu-Natal Cogta MEC and AmaZulu prime minister, Thulasizwe Buthelezi, appointed a nine-man team of traditional leaders to manage disputes within Zulu royalty.

"Our late king, Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu, started a process where the royal family played a critical role in resolving disputes and fostering reconciliation where succession disputes arise," Buthelezi said.

Buthelezi established this team at the backdrop of a succession battle between King Misuzulu and his half-brother, Prince Simakade and siblings of the late King Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu.

Misuzulu holds that he is entitled to the throne as he's the eldest son of the great wife, the late Queen Mantfombi Dlamini, whose lobola was paid for by the Zulu nation to her royal family in Eswatini.

THE LIMPOPO CASE

Limpopo province has also been inundated with traditional leadership disputes. In this province, disgruntled leaders have accused former premier, Stanley Mathabatha, of bias that has wedged deep divisions among royal families.

Mathabatha has lost many cases when traditional leaders took him to court.

In February this year, Khayizeni Maswanganyi - who is a relative of ANC Member of Parliament, Joe Maswanganyi, lost a Constitutional Court application to remain in power after Mathabatha conferred him the position under questionable circumstances.

Maswanganyi went to the apex court after lower courts had relegated him to be commoner because Mathabatha bestowed him a certificate of recognition in 2020 despite Mkhacani Hlaneki and the Hlaneki Traditional Council having made an application in the Polokwane High Court to set aside a recommendation of the Kgatla Commission that guided Mathabatha to recognise Maswanganyi.

On April 18, the Thohoyandou High Court set aside Mathabatha’s decision to recognise Mandela Wilson Nnengwekhulu as a senior traditional leader of the land south of the Levhuvu River. The Davhana royal family had approached the court to set aside Mathababatha’s decision taken on April 25 2018 to restore the traditional leadership of the Nnengwekhulus because historical facts indicated that the Nnengwekhulus had the status of headmen.

In March, the Polokwane High Court found that Mathabatha ignored facts in settling a traditional leadership dispute between the Makuleke and Mhinga traditional communities. The Makuleke community won its application to be recognised as an independent traditional community that deserves to have its own chief or senior traditional leader following a series of events since the apartheid era, which relegated the community’s leadership status to that of a headman.

The Makulekes accused the Limpopo Commission on Traditional Disputes and Claims of having ignored recommendations of the Ralushai Commission, which was appointed by erstwhile premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi in 1996 to recognise the Makuleke as a traditional community and recommending that their chieftainship be restored.