Durban — In a desperate bid to change the party’s electoral fortunes and stop the downslide, the ANC National Working Committee (NWC) – including President Cyril Ramaphosa – will be in KwaZulu-Natal until Monday.
The NWC deals with the party’s day-to-day operations.
The visit, the first after the party’s disastrous election performance in May, is part of the ANC’s post-election assessment which saw the party losing its majority nationally dropping from 57% to 40% nationally.
In KZN, a province the ANC has governed with a tight grip since 2004, the party dramatically fell from political grace, after sliding from 54% to 17%.
The ANC election loss is said to have resulted from the emergence of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, led by Jacob Zuma, who once led the ANC from 2007 to 2017.
The MKP won 58 seats in the 400-member National Assembly and 37 in the KZN provincial legislature with 80 seats.
Leading the party’s top brass, Ramaphosa will meet with the regional leadership of the ANC in the Moses Mabhida (Pietermaritzburg) region led by Mzimkhulu Thebolla on Sunday. On Sunday, Ramaphosa will meet with the ANC branches.
The party’s Secretary-General, Fikile Mbalula, is deployed to the crisis-plagued eThekwini region – the party’s biggest – led by Zandile Gumede as chairperson.
Gumede has been on step-aside since her re-election to the position in 2022 due the charges she is facing surrounding the R320 million Durban Solid Waste controversial tender awarding during her tenure as eThekwini mayor in 2017. This is after the ANC took a resolution that all party leaders and members facing serious allegations must step aside from their positions until clear by court.
Mbalula will meet with the regional leadership before meeting with the branches at the Durban Playhouse on Sunday.
The national chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, will lead a delegation to the Josiah Gumede region (Ladysmith).
There has been speculation that the ANC in KZN and eThekwini region – both once the party’s heartland – would be disbanded. However, the party has repeatedly rejected the claims.
Before the elections, the ANC was pinning its hopes on KZN especially eThekwini region, to save it from the political embarrassment of losing its 30-year-old long uninterrupted majority nationally.
The ANC counted massive election losses in the General Gizenga Mpanza (KwaDukuza) region.
The party’s Treasurer-General, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, will be in that town on Sunday to assess where the wheels came off. The meeting will take place in KwaDukuza Town Hall.
The 1st Seputy Secretary-General, Nomvula Mokonyane, will meet with the struggling Musa Dladla region (eMpangeni) leadership and branches at the Ngwelezana Hall in Empangeni.
ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo has previously angrily dismissed the speculation of disbandment.
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