By Barnaby Phillips BBC correspondent in Johannesburg

South African President Thabo Mbeki is holding talks with senior officials in the governing ANC in an attempt to resolve a growing political crisis in the province of KwaZulu Natal.

Mr Mbeki is trying to prevent political instability

The ANC is strongly opposed to moves by the Inkatha Freedom Party to dissolve the provincial legislature and hold early elections.

Fighting between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha in KwaZulu Natal in the 1980s and early 1990s left thousands of people dead.

A bitter dispute between the ANC and Inkatha is threatening the political stability South Africa has enjoyed since the end of apartheid.

The rivalry has raised memories of the low-level civil war the two parties once fought in the densely populated hills of KwaZulu Natal.

Power wrestling

It is control of this same province which is at the centre of a new dispute.

Inkatha has governed KwaZulu Natal ever since 1994, but now its narrow majority is threatened by new legislation which allows elected representatives to swap parties in the middle of their terms.

Mr Buthelezi is a minister in the South African government

The ANC believes it has recruited enough defectors in the KwaZulu Natal provincial assembly to wrestle power from Inkatha.

Inkatha is desperate to retain control of the province, its traditional stronghold, and is hoping to out-manoeuvre the ANC by dissolving the assembly and holding early elections.

The dispute in KwaZulu Natal is threatening Inkatha's continued participation in the national government.

Inkatha's leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, is also South Africa's minister for home affairs.

It is hard to see how the ANC and Inkatha can work together at a national level whilst their relationship in KwaZulu Natal is deteriorating so rapidly.