ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula has launched a fierce counterattack against internal critics calling for his removal. Addressing a packed press briefing at Luthuli House, the defiant administrator went on the offensive following intense fallout over the party's election registration administrative lapses.
Mbalula delivered an uncompromising warning to anonymous party members feeding critical leaks to weekend newspapers.
“I will not conduct the movement’s business through unnamed comrades in the Sunday papers,” insisted the SG.
He made it explicitly clear that he would not yield to public pressure or step down on account of these unnamed whisperers, while reasserting his stature at Luthuli House.
“There have been suggestions from within the movement of deliberate wrongdoing. I say to every comrade at every level, if you hold evidence, the movement's structures are open to receive it.
“What the ANC will not do is try its own comrades in the press ... It is the movement using its own employees as cover and I will not permit it as the Secretary-General and the boss of the ANC,” he continued.
Mbalula went on to pour cold water on public criticisms levelled against him by senior National Executive Committee (NEC) member, Mondli Gungubele.
Despite the latter publicly describing the registration issues as a scandalous failure through social media, Mbalula appeared to sideline the challenge by maintaining a calm posture.
It remains open whether Mbalula is taking a superior moral high ground or strategically blind-siding a prominent political rival to neutralise the attack.
“Accountability in the African National Congress follows a report through the structures. It does not follow a weekend news cycle.
“If there are errors, they will be accounted for internally through the formal processes of the National Executive Committee and the Electoral Committee, not on social media or in public squabbles,” Mbalula continued.
Throughout the press conference, Mbalula repeatedly asserted his authority as the supreme administrative chief of the governing party.
Observers consider this aggressive projection of raw institutional power a calculated message to his growing list of detractors, considering that he is increasingly being punted as a serious contender to succeed Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president.
Demonstrating total authority at Luthuli House, therefore, not only flexes power but also serves as essential reassurance to his supporters that their man is still standing.
“They say, ‘What kind of boss is this Mbalula who cannot submit a complete list of candidates?’ Those are nonsensical people who do not know what they are talking about.
“I’m the secretary-general. I’m the first stop of everyone who wants to blame someone, but I’m unfazed; it comes with the job,” he insisted.
Mbalula remains resolute that the party’s internal dispute processes will run their course without succumbing to external narrative pressure. His combative performance makes it clear that he will fight back against any internal campaign to unseat him before the next elective conference.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Court will hear a legal challenge by the ANC against the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on 15 September 2026.
The governing party is fighting to overturn the IEC’s alleged exclusion of more than 2 000 of its ward and municipal candidates from registering before 17:00 on 28 August 2026.
The IEC has, however, rejected the ANC’s claims that its members have been excluded, maintaining that its online candidate nomination system remained fully operational throughout the prescribed registration window.
