NATASHA MARRIAN: Doing the eggshell dance

Any organisation that suffers as big a blow as the ANC did in the 2024 polls has to try to stop the rot, and this week the party finally got round to the task.

It announced a plan to “reconfigure” the executive committees in the two provinces where it fared worst, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal — in other words, dissolve them.

Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula twisted himself in knots at a media briefing on Monday when he tried to explain the move, which has major implications for the party’s elective conference scheduled for 2027. Mbalula himself is among those who like to think they are in line to succeed President Cyril Ramaphosa as party leader.

The ANC structures now in place in Gauteng and KZN were likely to support Deputy President Paul Mashatile at the conference. The planned overhaul — which involves the ANC’s top seven leaders naming interim leaders in the provinces — could go either way for Mashatile, either weakening his campaign or bolstering it.

At a weekend meeting of the national executive committee (NEC), Ramaphosa said the provincial executive committees (PECs) of Gauteng and KZN would be “reconfigured” as provided for by the party constitution. New structures would be appointed, which would include members of the NEC and party veterans.

Mbalula and others are walking on eggshells when discussing the issue, due to the danger of it plunging the ANC into infighting even more vicious and debilitating than usual ahead of its 2027 conference.

Apart from Mbalula, would-be candidates could include Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, under whose leadership ANC support in Gauteng plunged 15 percentage points in 2024, compared with 2019.

Lesufi and his PEC in Gauteng conspicuously refused to form a GNU-style coalition with the DA after the elections in May. They would have preferred the EFF or Jacob Zuma’s MK Party as GNU partners.

The emergence of MK poses fresh dangers for ANC unity, due to divided loyalties in Gauteng and KZN. The existing ANC leadership in both provinces would rather get into bed with Zuma than the DA.

In KZN, entire ANC branches are understood to have nailed their colours to the MK mast, under the nose of a provincial leadership that long pandered to the tainted former president’s political whims. 

Zuma loomed large at the weekend NEC meeting, with insiders saying former president Thabo Mbeki once again accused his nemesis of driving a “counterrevolutionary plot”.

It is understood that Mbeki told the meeting that MK is the “creation and manifestation” of counterrevolution in South Africa. He apparently raised questions about the circumstances leading to Zuma’s prison term on Robben Island, effectively suggesting the former president was planted there.

It would not be the first time Mbeki has accused Zuma of counterrevolution, but he has not aired the Robben Island theory before.

In handling the dissolution of its leadership structures in the two most populous provinces the ANC will be mindful that local government elections are due in about 18 months, and the slightest provocation could prompt a greater haemorrhage of support to MK.

While the national government has made progress with interventions in KZN municipalities, in eThekwini in particular, Joburg and the rest of Gauteng continue to unravel apace.

Lesufi and the Gauteng PEC have for years defied the ANC’s national coalition framework to form unstable administrations in the province and name puppet mayors in crucial metros, resulting in their near collapse. Ekurhuleni, once the only ANC-run metro to receive clean audits, lost that admirable record after the party backed the appointment of an EFF MMC for finance who had never served as a councillor before, let alone managed a budget. 

In Joburg, where the ANC and the EFF joined forces in 2022 to oust the DA-led administration, the situation is dire, with water shortages and a glaring collapse of basic services such as grass cutting, road repair, refuse removal and the operation of clinics.