It gives me great pleasure to be here on the South Coast with you today. My purpose of coming here is to thank each one of you for your marvellous work and support in the General Election campaign of April 14 2004. I would like to also share some thoughts with you about the character and nature of the IFP's role in the months and years ahead.

We have been through some difficult times of late. This is the first time that we have been out of power in KwaZulu-Natal, since 1994. This is traumatic for all of us. But it is important in our shared disappointment to distinguish between fact and fiction.

The IFP, despite, a huge and concerted effort by a ruling-party that was able to mobilize unprecedented resources, managed to win nearly seven percent of the national vote and deprived the ANC of obtaining a majority in KwaZulu-Natal. It is a tribute to the strength of your character and determination that we held our ground to the extent we did. There are several reasons for our defeat, which we need to address in the months ahead. Do not forget that the ANC did not get a majority in this Province on their own, that they now claim to be. That this was because the minority Parties in the KwaZulu Natal Legislature, the Minority Front of Mr Rajbhansi, the ACDP of the Rev. Meshoe and the UDM of General Holomisa, decided to throw in their lot with them, and as we have seen for ourselves, they have been rightly rewarded for coming to the rescue of the ANC.

But as your leader, I want to say to you today: your hard work, sacrifice and dedication were not in vain. I am very proud of you and ask that you be not despondent, but rather be invigorated by the fresh challenges we face. Before turning to these challenges, I would like to make some brief comments first about the IFP's case, which we took to the Electoral Court.

The IFP's slogan is 'democracy means freedom to choose.' The majesty of democracy is a splendid and humbling ideal. It was with regret that, as the leader of the IFP, I could not describe the 2004 election as being truly 'free and fair'. Widespread election irregularities and acts of intimidation, which many of you saw with your own eyes and experienced, may have robbed the IFP of victory in KwaZulu-Natal. The Independent Electoral Commission failed to investigate the numerous complaints, which we lodged.

We were not prepared to let this stand. After the election, we took the difficult decision to take our case to the Electoral Court. The Electoral Court is a special court that meets to deliberate upon election disputes and, if appropriate, to provide remedy, that puts right a wrong or injustice. The Electoral Court is subject to the Electoral Act, which is very precise. The Electoral Court's decisions are based upon narrow legal and technical considerations, not moral arguments. In order to obtain remedy, which in practical terms would have been a fresh election or the redistribution of seats by the IEC, we would have had to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the election irregularities and acts of intimidation had a "material effect" on the election result. That is the crux of the matter.

Needless to say, to prove that the outcome would have been different would have been very difficult, if not near impossible. We were faced with a difficult decision, as we did not want to let the people who put their trust in us down. Nor did we want our case to overshadow the celebration of our country's first ten years of Democracy.

To contribute to national unity and reconciliation, we decided to withdraw the case. In doing so, we won the argument. We are proud that we placed on public record the widespread irregularities and acts of intimidation that took place. We have laid down a marker for future election polls. I want you to clearly understand this because I heard that many of you misunderstood the reasons for our withdrawing the case at that stage. The withdrawal of the case did not mean that we were saying that the complaints that we took to the Electoral Court about the widespread irregularities and acts of intimidation that took place, during the April 14 elections did not take place. We know of people who voted several times in Durban who were ferried by Thokomala buses from one polling station to another. We know that even our National Chairman and his family and several voters throughout the country did not have their ID's stamped after voting. We know that several people throughout the country did not have their fingernails marked, and were therefore able to vote several times. We are aware of acts of intimidation that were carried out by members of the Defence Force at Msinga. I personally wrote to my then Colleague the Minister of Defence Mr Lekota about this, and these complaints were not addressed. I can name several things that were irregular that were done which people deposed in statements on oath which they saw with their own eyes.

Blatant lies were spread throughout the Province and particularly here in the South Coast that the IFP had threatened to withdraw child support grants, if returned to power. These were vile propagandistic lies, which unfortunately some of our voters, swallowed hook, line and sinker. We never said this nor does any party have a right to withdraw child grants, which are a constitutional right and not a favour by any political Party. Some people were bribed with cash to vote against us. These things are numerous to detail in a speech of this kind.

And yet some of these irregularities took place because many of our leaders failed to heed my warnings. It was not the first election that was characterized by irregularities. Even in the 1999 elections several irregularities took place in the uThungulu Municipal District, which were discovered by Mrs. Jeanette Vilakazi MP. We were told that these were raised too late for them to be attended to. And yet those criminals who committed those irregularities succeeded because arrangements to have Party agents at every polling station did not take place. This in spite of my very strong prior warning that, our opponents would commit irregularities on a wide scale. Arrangements to have Party agents are provided for because no Party has angels as its members and Party agents are provided for in order to avoid the kind of irregularities that took place on the 14th April. Many of our Councilors aspired to be elected to Parliament despite a clear resolution of our General Conference last year, that they should serve their full terms and not go to Parliament. Many of them were disgruntled and of them vowed not to canvass in the elections as a reaction to them not being sent to Parliament.

We were of cause disadvantaged by lack of resources as we did not have even a fraction of the resources that our opponents have. But this was not the first time that this was the case. We won in the past, because of the commitment by everyone of us to our success at the polls. This was not the case this time around. There are now some people who are bent on venting their spleens by trying to blame some people in our leadership for our failure to win in this Province. Regrettably the people who are doing so are people who have not done a thing during the past elections. They have neither canvassed nor sacrificed their money as some of us have done and continue to do even now to liquidate the debts we accumulated during the past elections. They just come to speak ex-cathedra about who is responsible for the Party's failure to win KwaZulu Natal. I find the whole thing utterly disgusting. But as a democrat I will let the members of the Party give their verdict on these sort of activities.

Yet now is not the time to dwell on the past, or what might have been. We must look forward and focus outwards. Until the elections, KwaZulu-Natal was the only province that remained outside of the constellation of ANC control. This election delivered the ANC 70% of the votes and 100% of political power. The winner, in the words of a well-known ABBA song, certainly took it all! But losing control of KwaZulu-Natal was not only an electoral setback for the IFP, it was a huge setback for the democratic process in South Africa and the establishment of an alternating system of government, for a genuine democracy demands an alternative to the ruling-party and that is one which has a real chance of gaining power.

Here in KwaZulu-Natal, the responsibility will fall on us, as one of the two major parties represented in the legislature, to ensure that the province remains South Africa's laboratory of democracy. KwaZulu-Natal with its acute political competition, more than any other province, holds out the hope of a genuine alternating system of government, where power moves from party to another.

On the national stage, as the moral and constructive opposition, we will use parliament to champion the IFP message and provide a clear alternative to the ruling-party.

There are those, of course, who say that there are no real differences between the major political parties and it will not really make any difference which party you support. I reject this. We share many similar objectives to other parties, yet we disagree on the means of achieving them.

There is clear water between the ANC and the IFP on how decisions that affect ordinary people should be made. We believe that decision-making should be taken at the closest point to the community as practically possible. The ANC, on the other hand, wants to clasp all power at the centre, with decisions imposed in a top-down manner, effectively tying each mayor to the president, and also every Premier be an appointee of the President.

During the election we campaigned on the five most important issues facing South Africans: HIV/Aids, poverty, job creation and economic growth, crime and corruption. We will continue to do so throughout the period of this parliament. Our public policy profile will not be constructed in lofty think tanks, but will be based in the real day-to-day experiences of ordinary South Africans. My challenge to you is to replicate this and to develop issue-based campaigns in your communities.

On Wednesday, we commemorated Youth Day. The Child's Rights Organisation tells us that many children live in conditions where their rights are threatened. Here on the South Coast, many children have been orphaned by Aids and many are even the sole breadwinners for their families. As a Party, we must strive to defend the rights of children affected by Aids. The IFP has always championed the cause for strong communities and the role of the extended family as one of our basic principles. We will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with other millions of South Africans living with HIV/Aids. The IFP will use its position in parliament and the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng Legislatures to exert pressure on government to bridge the gap between policy and the implementation of a comprehensive plan to treat HIV/Aids. The proof of the pudding is in the implementation, not aspiration.

As the leader of the IFP, I will use my position, in every way possible, to break down notions of 'them' and 'us' between HIV positive and non-infected people, and to raise awareness about this disease.

The IFP's role will be defined to a large extent by the constituency from which it draws the majority of its support. They are the rural black poor. Those million or so people chose to vote for us, not anyone else. They did so because they believe that we can articulate their voice and needs better than any other party in the national debate. We dare not let them down.

Over the next five years, the IFP will aspire to be the moral conscience of South Africa. I do not mean that we will make moral judgments about the choices individuals make in their private lives, but about how government keeps to the promises it made.

The IFP will give government credit when it gets things right, and we will be tough on government when its public policy fails, or service delivery falters. We will judge government not on the sleekness of its presentation, but on how its decisions improve the living conditions of the rural poor. I have asked each of our public representatives to evaluate if the proposed legislation before them benefits our constituents in KwaZulu-Natal and throughout South Africa. We will ask in every debate and platform if this government's action enhances a community's ability, such as here on the South Coast, to help itself and promote self-reliance.

At present, the poor majority is becoming poorer in real terms, as a new enriched elite emerges, symbolized by the ubiquitous BMW or Mercedes Benz. The ruling-party is not making sufficient progress towards constructing a 'people-centred society' in which all our people live in dignity, free from material and spiritual want.

If we are to avoid what the nineteenth century British prime-minister, Benjamin Disraeli, famously (but much misunderstood) called "two nations" emerging in South Africa, we must narrow the inequality gap. We do that by not dividing the cake, as the Left in South Africa would urge us to do, but by empowering the poor and marginalized and drawing them into the mainstream of economic opportunity.

Disraeli was speaking of a Britain divided into a wealthy South and an impoverished North during the industrial revolution. My biggest fear in twenty-first century South Africa is that the bitter politics of race will be overlaid with the equally divisive politics of class.

It is for this reason that I am disappointed that this time we did not make greater inroads in gaining support in the Indian and white communities. I do not believe it is a healthy situation in which 'class' and 'race' remains the cleavages upon which our political parties divide. My message to people in Indian and white communities is that they have a political home in the IFP. I believe our destinies are bound together.

My point is that those who live in the grimmest townships' shacks have common interests to those living in the shining light and glass of our plushest suburbs. I do not believe people want to live a fortress existence with high walls and electric fences, moving in a strange, twilight world of air-conditioned cars and soulless shopping malls. People, by their intrinsic nature, want to live in shared communities and to feel the full tide of life, in all its glorious diversity and richness, to flow through them. It is tragic that at present, we are merely swapping one elite for another: an elite island surrounded by a sea of poverty.

The biggest singular challenge for any political party that aspires to govern South Africa is to build a counterweight to the ruling-party that coheres around a common set of principles and beliefs, to which people from every walk of life will freely subscribe. This is the mission I have set for the IFP.

I want the IFP to be a catch all party that draws support from every community and people from every walk of life. I say to the people of the South Coast and people everywhere in our rural areas that you share common interests to people living in the suburbs of Musgrave and Kloof in Durban, or Pongola in the North of our province. Each has an interest in the progress and wellbeing of the other.

The challenge we face is to build a modern political force, underpinned by Inkatha's timeless values and principles, which can respond nimbly to the challenges of the fast changing world in which we live.

The IFP must capitalize on its position as South Africa's largest black-opposition party and the one with the greatest potential for growth. Let us make our case with deftness of touch, clarity of purpose and in an uncluttered manner.

Today, I exhort you to put the disappointment of losing KwaZulu-Natal behind us and prepare for the looming election battle in the local government elections, which are only seventeen months away. If we are united in purpose, this will be the first stage of our recovery. Let us hear the voice of the people, who this time, did not feel able to support us, and learn from our mistakes. Let us give short shrift to complacency and apathy. I do not take the support of any one member of the electorate for granted. We earned that right before and we shall earn it again. I fear that being in office may have blunted some of our members and structures drive and determination to win. Let us regain that cutting-edge.

Let us never forget that we are the servants and the people are the masters. Let us never lose our hunger to serve. I have learnt in politics that there are never any final victories, nor defeats. We will have to fight, and fight again, for the beliefs and ideals that we hold dear.

I must tell you today, that without your contribution, the Party is nothing. The renewal of our Party can only spring upwards from our grassroots, from wards and branches. Let us begin this process of renewal today.

Next month we will be having our Annual General Conference. I ask that you come and speak candidly about the issues that concern you and your community. I do not mean going to Conference to chew the cad of mutual recriminations. I mean to share candidly at Conference in what way we can go forward as a party, and not go to Conference to identify scapegoats for our own failures. Our public policy and issue-based campaigns must emerge from the real live experiences of our voters and supporters, if we are to become the mighty political alternative, which I have spoken of today. People need to know that we really care about them and their concerns.