The Peace Deal: The Formation of the Ingonyama Trust and the IFP Decision to Join South Africa’s 1994 Elections

The territory once administered by the KwaZulu homeland, roughly 30 per cent of the current province of KwaZulu-Natal, belongs to the Ingonyama Trust. After South Africa’s first democratic elections of 26–28 April 1994, the other nine homelands were integrated into a unitary state. The land they administered came under the authority of the national government. KwaZulu was the only exception. How did 2.8 million hectares end up in a trust with the Zulu king as sole trustee? This article returns to the tense political standoff before the elections to reconstruct the informal negotiations that resulted in the Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) decision to join elections and the transfer of KwaZulu land to the king. The peace deal emerged from a brief reanimation of an old working partnership between Pretoria and traditional authorities in KwaZulu, based on a confluence of interests among National Party conservatives and IFP moderates. Ultimately, the IFP decided to participate without the federalist guarantees it demanded. Instead, the inducement was land for the traditional authorities who formed the backbone of KwaZulu administration. Based on extensive interviews and archival research, this article excavates the Ingonyama Trust’s role in breaking a seemingly unsolvable political deadlock.