ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri. (Photo by Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images)
ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri has admitted that the party’s structures in KwaZulu-Natal are not strong enough to withstand the problems it faces.
Bhengu-Motsiri was speaking to journalists in Boksburg ahead of a meeting of the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) and the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee (PEC) on Monday to discuss the 29 May elections. The working committee was also to have met the Gauteng PEC but this has been postponed.
In the May elections, the ANC secured less than 17% of the vote in KwaZulu-Natal, a decline attributed to several factors including the growing influence of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.
The national working committee has been considering replacing the PECs of both Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal with task teams in a bid to strengthen the ANC’s structures ahead of the 2026 local government elections. It has also considered the option of “augmenting” them by sending senior leaders to effectively take the reins in the province.
It visited both provinces after the elections to establish what went wrong and how it should rebuild the party.
Bhengu-Motsiri said it would be foolhardy for the ANC not to take stock in terms of its electoral losses and their effect on the state of the party in the province.
“So, in a nutshell, we are not strong in KwaZulu-Natal and we are not strong enough to withstand a number of challenges that any political organisation faces. This is why we’re embarking on this renewal exercise in KwaZulu-Natal.”
Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC was neither “hounding” the province nor focusing solely on it. “We are looking at all provinces with a view to identifying where we remain strong and solid but also where there are certain challenges.”
Bhengu-Motsiri said the meeting was a follow-up to the NWC visit to KwaZulu-Natal and meetings with different regions, after which a report was compiled.
“KwaZulu-Natal contributes highly to the national vote share. It is important to acknowledge that we have suffered there with defections from within the organisation,” she said, adding that KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng were important if the ANC wanted to win the national election outright.
“Not just make it in an election but to be able to actually govern effectively and to be able to drive any agenda — in our case it’s a transformation agenda,” she said.
Last week an NWC member told the Mail & Guardian that the Gauteng PEC was likely to be dissolved because of its “arrogance”. They said although it was not yet at the point of dissolution, this was being discussed.
“The ones in KZN are trying, they have been trying to gain ground. The ones that I think are going to have to put a serious case is the Gauteng one. Their arrogance — if you look at the issues of what has been happening on the ground, they are nowhere,” the source said.
“We are not at the dissolution, it’s still too dicey, but the issues around what you have been seeing in the two provinces will have to come. If, after we have visited, there has been improvement, then they will be safe. If there is no improvement, I do think that they will face the chop.”
KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo pushed back against Luthuli House in a memorial lecture in Stanger on Thursday.
“The NEC [national executive committee] led by [Cyril] Ramaphosa and [Fikile] Mbalula lost the country with 40%. They must take that responsibility. We are taking our own responsibility with [Siboniso] of losing the province with 17%,” Mtolo said, adding that the poor performance in KwaZulu-Natal was symptomatic of a wider problem facing the ANC nationally.
He said internal divisions and a lack of accountability had left the party in disarray and until leaders at all levels accepted their role in this decline, the ANC would continue to struggle to regain the public’s confidence.
Mtolo’s remarks appear to have angered the ANC’s national leadership.
Bhengu-Motsiri said various scenarios were being considered and the party would in due course outline the plan after an NEC meeting later this month.
Asked whether the ANC was worried that some ANC members in KwaZulu-Natal were working with the MK party, Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC was not in the business of second-guessing its leaders and members.
“We believe that those that don’t find pleasure in the ANC anymore are free to go to whichever party,” she said.
“We fought for this democracy. We can’t be the ones that are subverting it in any way, including conspiring on people that are said to be part of the MK party.”