Calling Buthelezi the Zulu people’s PM is a misrepresentation

IT IS perplexing that Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi is every day, referred to as the prime minister of the Zulu-speaking people.

The English definition of a prime minister is the head of government or a leader of ministers in a parliamentary system of government.

Buthelezi was a leader and president of a political party whose majority was and continues to be in KwaZulu-Natal, and it must be noted that not all Zulu-speaking people are members of Inkatha Freedom Party.

Giving Buthelezi the prime minister title suggests that all the Zulu-speaking people support the principles that Buthelezi stands for.

To show that this misrepresentation of Buthelezi as the prime minister of the Zulus is misguided, KwaZulu-Natal is under the ANC government and not the IFP rule. On March 11, 1978 when the great Robert Sobukwe was laid to rest, my late uncle who lived all his life in Graaff-Reinet told me in 1990 when I was doing my matric there, that Buthelezi was forced by angry residents of that small town to leave before the start of the funeral.

This ejection of Buthelezi from the iconic Sobukwe's funeral shows also that Buthelezi was no prime minister because the divisive apartheid regime did not even offer him any protection as they were inclined to protect all their stooges.

It's an insult to continue to call Buthelezi the traditional prime minister of the Zulu nation as I have never heard of the Sotho, Venda, Tswana prime ministers.