The future of the provincial leadership of the ANC in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal now lies with the party’s top brass who will in December decide whether to disband it or not.
The ANC performed poorly in the two provinces in the May elections, forcing it to coalesce with its former rivals in provincial governments of national unity. ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula described the situation as “dire” saying it could not be “business as usual”. Mbalula said the party should claw back its electoral losses in the 2026 local government elections.
On Monday, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee pleaded its case before the ANC’s national working committee, which is responsible for the day-to-day running of the party.
Reliable sources told Business Day that provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo blamed the ANC’s electoral decline in the province on the emergence of the Jacob Zuma-led MK party which garnered 44% of the vote.
Mtolo is said to have told the meeting that the ANC’s national executive committee was warned that Zuma’s incarceration in 2021 and the ANC’s lack of support for the former president would lead to the party’s demise in the province.
The provincial executive committee in Gauteng would have a chance to plead its case before the national working committee within the coming week with the final decision made at a meeting of the national executive committee in two weeks’ time, Mbalula said.
Mbalula agreed that disbanding the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee could pave the way for those who might have aided the Zuma-led party to electorally overtake the ANC in the province to defect.
“People who are loyal to the ANC will remain, but those who want to go to the other side will go... Some of the regions in KwaZulu-Natal have collapsed and the ANC has no chance to come back in places such as eThekwini and Moses Mabhida,” Mbalula said on the sidelines of the national working committee meeting.
Another ANC national working committee member told Business Day: “The MK had told the sleeper agents within the ANC to remain. Now they will be free to go.”
“If we don’t disband and strengthen the province then we run into a situation where the elected leadership will complain when we bring in an national executive committee member to make decisions,” the source within the ANC’s national top seven, who did not want to be named, said.
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal previously suspended three councillors in the eThekwini region, the ANC’s largest region by membership, for campaigning for MK.
Zuma has been expelled from the ANC for contravening the party’s constitution for joining and campaigning for MK, which is named after the ANC’s now defunct military wing.
The four-party coalition in KwaZulu-Natal puts the IFP in charge of the premier position and four other cabinet positions in the 10-member executive. The parties have a combined 41 out of 80 seats in the legislature.
The MK party won the most votes in the province with 45.3%, ahead of the IFP on 18% and the ANC on 17% of the vote. The power-sharing deal reflects a coalition agreement struck between the parties with the aim of locking the MK party out of the government despite it winning the lion’s share of the vote.
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