The ANC has started expelling members of its Mangaung branches who supported former party members who stood against it as independents in last week’s by-elections in the Free State capital.
The ANC is moving to purge its Mangaung branches of members who supported the four expelled ward councillors who stood against the party in by-elections in the Free State capital on Wednesday.
The governing party took all four wards in the by-elections, sparked by the expulsion of seven of its councillors who had backed opposition candidates in elections for speaker and mayor and who had cost the ANC control of the city.
The outcome will see the ANC remove the Democratic Alliance (DA) speaker, Maryke Davies in coming weeks, with its control over the council firmly reestablished through the defeat of the rebel councillors, linked to former secretary general Ace Magashule.
The group, which calls itself M7, backed Davies against Bongani Mathae, the ANC’s candidate for speaker, in March, as part of their revolt against the regional and provincial leadership.
They forged a relationship with the DA and other opposition parties and backed their bid for the speaker’s post — and later the mayorship — and were subsequently expelled by the governing party.
On Wednesday, Mangaung ANC regional secretary Sabelo Pitso wrote to all branch secretaries informing them that it was invoking rule 25 of the ANC’s constitution to deal with “ill discipline” and “wayward conduct” by party members during the by-elections.
Pitso said that ANC members had been involved in supporting the former councillors during the by-elections and had also been de-campaigning their own party.
“Some members of the ANC who are sympathetic towards the expelled members … with specific reference to those standing as independent ward councillors … and have been de-campaigning the ANC, whilst on the other hand promoting, publicising and supporting the so-called M7 ward candidates,” Pitso said.
Pitso instructed branch secretaries to compile a list of all of those who had de-campaigned the ANC within three days so that the section 25 process took place swifty, dealing with the revolt “at its infancy stage”.
The ANC fared less well in KwaZulu-Natal, where it lost ward 6 at Mthonjaneni Local Municipality to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), whose candidate, Siyanda Masuku, took 62.51% of the vote.
The IFP grew its votes in the ward, won by the ANC In November 2021, by more than 20%.
It also retained ward 2 at Nkandla Local Municipality, which it controls, with its candidate Celinhlanhla Mbambo winning 77.39% of the vote, another improvement on its November 2021 showing.
In the other big battle of this round of by-elections, the DA and the Patriotic Alliance (PA) both took wards off the Good party in the George Local Municipality.
DA candidate Theresa Jayi, a former Good councillor who resigned from the party, won ward 16 and fellow DA member Marchelle Kleynhans took ward 27.
The PA’s Christo Alexander is now the councillor for ward 20.
The outcome gives the DA an outright majority in George, where it now has 28 of a total of 55 seats.