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The ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting to decide on the fate of its achilles heel provinces has been postponed to January.
This was announced by party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula on Monday after a lengthy day of closed meetings with its Gauteng provincial structure.
The national structure embarked on a series of engagements to dissect the outcomes of the May elections, where the party suffered electoral blows in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Both structures were invited to present their analysis of the state of their provinces alongside a reflection on the challenges that led to their poor showing at the polls.
Mbalula characterised the exercise as not being a “blame game”, denying a counter argument that this was a purging exercise.
Instead, he insisted the talks were necessary for the party to deal with the aftermath of the elections and ensure that they left behind a strong leadership to work towards regaining lost ground ahead of the local government elections in 2026.
“If the challenge is leadership, you strengthen that leadership and intervene. If certain things were not done properly leading up to the elections, like co-ordination, membership and volunteers not being properly organised, you deal with that. If the overall challenge was objective, like the state of governance, load-shedding, that is also dealt with,” Mbalula said.
The secretary-general listed the proliferation of political parties that challenged the ANC as an impediment to it securing its long-enjoyed majority, dropping below 50%, which affected the entire movement.
“You can’t play a blame game to say it is this person or that person. You look at the state of the organisation and answer the question of what needs to be done. We would have lost because of a plethora of issues, whether organisational, which we believe can be fixed for the betterment of the structures to perform better,” Mbalula said.
“If the ANC is well organised — as huge as it is on the ground, a well-oiled machine — no-one can catch up.”
Mbalula said they got into areas where they acknowledged the party’s support base, but failed to energise voters to vote for the party.
“Apathy has crept in. You will find that they don’t vote for us but they don’t vote for other parties either. They stay at home, and these are some of the challenges that need to be addressed.”
He cited the recent by-elections in different provinces as a solid case study proving his theory.
“We won 14 of the 18 by-elections that we contested recently. That is because there was somebody doing the work there to organise and ensure that we win. We won 10 of the 12 wards that were contested in Thabazimbi. It did not just happen, we won because there is machinery on the ground that was working very hard to ensure that we secure victory.
“We got 900 plus votes in Mtubatuba, from 217 in the last election. We came second to the IFP. The Zuma party [MK party] got 300 plus. We beat them in this election.”
He attributed these wins to hard work, saying elections were not won from polls that forecast a certain result.
“Once the polls say that you are going to get 30%, you implement strategies that will ensure that you don't get that 30%. If in the two provinces that we have gone to we have identified what the weaknesses are, we ought to respond and upgrade ourselves to be fit to overtake our competition.”
Mbalula revealed the ANC was considering three options regarding the future of the two provincial structures: disbandment, no change in the leadership or a reinforcement of the current leaders.
“Disbandment is a total overhaul, we remove the current structure and replace it. Or it can be that we are fine with the status quo and the current people are fit for the task with minor tweaks here and there or we can bring in new people to provide support to the current structure.”
The party’s national working committee (NWC) was scheduled to provide a recommendation to the NEC on the proposed way forward, which the NEC was expected to deliberate on and announce a position on the future of the two provinces.
However, the party will now convene in January ahead of its annual birthday celebrations set to take place in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. The first NEC meeting will be to deliberate and finalise the January 8th statement to be delivered by party president Cyril Ramaphosa.
After that, a second NEC meeting to close the chapter on the futures of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal will be held and a decision will be announced.
“This weekend has become very difficult for us. There’s also a lot of traffic when it comes to the timing this December. There is the South African Communist Party [SACP] conference this weekend, as well as two state visits. We also have the celebrations of reconciliation day in Matsikamma.
“We want when we meet and reflect on issues, we need each and every NEC member present. We need them to engage on every report presented to them. This is why it has been shifted to January,” he said.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
ANC postpones NEC meeting to January
The ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting to decide on the fate of its achilles heel provinces has been postponed to January.
This was announced by party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula on Monday after a lengthy day of closed meetings with its Gauteng provincial structure.
The national structure embarked on a series of engagements to dissect the outcomes of the May elections, where the party suffered electoral blows in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Both structures were invited to present their analysis of the state of their provinces alongside a reflection on the challenges that led to their poor showing at the polls.
Mbalula characterised the exercise as not being a “blame game”, denying a counter argument that this was a purging exercise.
Instead, he insisted the talks were necessary for the party to deal with the aftermath of the elections and ensure that they left behind a strong leadership to work towards regaining lost ground ahead of the local government elections in 2026.
“If the challenge is leadership, you strengthen that leadership and intervene. If certain things were not done properly leading up to the elections, like co-ordination, membership and volunteers not being properly organised, you deal with that. If the overall challenge was objective, like the state of governance, load-shedding, that is also dealt with,” Mbalula said.
The secretary-general listed the proliferation of political parties that challenged the ANC as an impediment to it securing its long-enjoyed majority, dropping below 50%, which affected the entire movement.
“You can’t play a blame game to say it is this person or that person. You look at the state of the organisation and answer the question of what needs to be done. We would have lost because of a plethora of issues, whether organisational, which we believe can be fixed for the betterment of the structures to perform better,” Mbalula said.
“If the ANC is well organised — as huge as it is on the ground, a well-oiled machine — no-one can catch up.”
Mbalula said they got into areas where they acknowledged the party’s support base, but failed to energise voters to vote for the party.
“Apathy has crept in. You will find that they don’t vote for us but they don’t vote for other parties either. They stay at home, and these are some of the challenges that need to be addressed.”
Voters hand another boost to GNU parties in by-elections
He cited the recent by-elections in different provinces as a solid case study proving his theory.
“We won 14 of the 18 by-elections that we contested recently. That is because there was somebody doing the work there to organise and ensure that we win. We won 10 of the 12 wards that were contested in Thabazimbi. It did not just happen, we won because there is machinery on the ground that was working very hard to ensure that we secure victory.
“We got 900 plus votes in Mtubatuba, from 217 in the last election. We came second to the IFP. The Zuma party [MK party] got 300 plus. We beat them in this election.”
He attributed these wins to hard work, saying elections were not won from polls that forecast a certain result.
“Once the polls say that you are going to get 30%, you implement strategies that will ensure that you don't get that 30%. If in the two provinces that we have gone to we have identified what the weaknesses are, we ought to respond and upgrade ourselves to be fit to overtake our competition.”
Mbalula revealed the ANC was considering three options regarding the future of the two provincial structures: disbandment, no change in the leadership or a reinforcement of the current leaders.
“Disbandment is a total overhaul, we remove the current structure and replace it. Or it can be that we are fine with the status quo and the current people are fit for the task with minor tweaks here and there or we can bring in new people to provide support to the current structure.”
The party’s national working committee (NWC) was scheduled to provide a recommendation to the NEC on the proposed way forward, which the NEC was expected to deliberate on and announce a position on the future of the two provinces.
However, the party will now convene in January ahead of its annual birthday celebrations set to take place in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. The first NEC meeting will be to deliberate and finalise the January 8th statement to be delivered by party president Cyril Ramaphosa.
After that, a second NEC meeting to close the chapter on the futures of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal will be held and a decision will be announced.
“This weekend has become very difficult for us. There’s also a lot of traffic when it comes to the timing this December. There is the South African Communist Party [SACP] conference this weekend, as well as two state visits. We also have the celebrations of reconciliation day in Matsikamma.
“We want when we meet and reflect on issues, we need each and every NEC member present. We need them to engage on every report presented to them. This is why it has been shifted to January,” he said.
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Published by Arena Holdings and distributed with the Financial Mail on the last Thursday of every month except December and January.