There he finally obtained the post he had coveted. He was now a rising star, but in a party whose future was far from certain. The UDM was founded by Bantu Holomisa, former president of the bantustan of Transkei, and himself an ANC defector. But even before Nkabinde's death, his plan was looking shaky. The triumvirate he had assembled may have had the right racial credentials, but they were all three interlopers, rejected by their respective tribes, who had more in common with each other than with their own.
Many observers play down the significance of the most recent round of violence.
This violence is not political. They have been creating the impression that the ANC and the UDM are killing each other in Richmond. While that impression may yet prove to be erroneous, there is a lot of circumstantial weight behind it. Internecine violence has been a constant feature of South African political life since the days of apartheid, and nowhere more so than in KwaZulu-Natal, where it was grafted onto a powerful substrate of tribal rivalry. Tribal politics still counts for a lot today.