WATCH | Mbalula warns of tough decisions as ANC grapples with KZN’s decline to 17% support

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Cape Town — African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, says the party’s leadership in Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) is no match for uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.

Speaking to the media outside the ANC’s National Working Committee (NWC) meeting to discuss the party’s future in the province on Monday, Mbalula said that the meeting was not called to disband or call any intervention but to finalise the party’s work in KZN.

“We have been engaging in organisational analysis about what’s happening and what we think must happen in these provinces. The NWC processed that analysis and then took it to KZN and they have not disputed our analysis in terms of the diagnosis we have made. What they don’t know is what is the prognosis and the biggest worry and the buzzword is disbandment and so on,” he said.

Despite not having reached a decision, Mbalula did not rule out disbandment of the structure as an option the party has to explore.

“Disbandment can be taken if it has to be taken to intervene in response to that situation there. It is part of the options that we’ll look at when we meet next week before the NEC meeting, if we agree we’ll table it to the NEC and then we implement it as leaders tasked with taking the party to its next conference,” said Mbalula.

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According to The Mail & Guardian, Mbalula said competing with the MK party was like a Ferrari against a Conquest.

“We are fighting a Ferrari there with a [Toyota]  Conquest, we need to match a Ferrari with a flying machine that moves faster in seconds to surpass what is happening there. We have dropped to 17% and anyone else can not tell us we can not do anything about that,” Mbalula said on Monday, referring to the ANC’s sharp loss of support in the province in the 29 May general elections,” Mbalula said.

“Those who thought they got the ANC to be weaker, we will rebuild it and we will come back. We are not going to surrender the ANC to anyone, Jacob Zuma or anyone. We will defend with ANC members on the ground the recovery of the ANC,” he said.

He explained that the party’s NWC held fact-finding missions in KZN and Gauteng to determine how the party lost votes in both provinces.

The party says it cannot be business as usual given the dismal election outcome in the province, where its support plunged from 54% in 2019 to 17% this year.

Mbalula said from an organisational point of view, “nothing is good” in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng and decisive leadership was needed for the party to recover.

“We have done a thorough job in terms of analysing these provinces and we are now in a better position to give them feedback, which we have done with KwaZulu-Natal. We are now going to do it with Gauteng,” he said.

Some in the ANC believe that disbanding the provincial structures would only divide the party even further and that the National Executive Committee (NEC) should not be spared from the fallout of the dismal election, which saw the party lose its outright parliament majority for the first time.

According to IOL, Mbalula placed a gag order on the KZN and Gauteng leadership from speaking to the media about the matter, saying he was the only one allowed to.

“We speak on behalf of the ANC, mandated positions… anyone who speaks after me should wear a Mzeke Mzeke or if ever they come to the fore, they would have crossed the line of discipline,” he said.

“We will take them to the cleaners in terms of the disciplinary structures of the ANC. Nobody has a mandate to speak either than me on the matter,” he added.

Picture: X/@MbalulaFikile

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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