The ANC has stripped the KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee (PEC) of its powers after the party’s dismal performance in the May polls.
This comes after party structures relayed to ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa how difficult it had been to campaign for him during the elections after the KwaZulu-Natal leadership sullied his name ahead of the party’s 2022 national elective conference at Nasrec.
The ANC’s national working committee (NWC) last weekend visited ANC branches in KwaZulu-Natal to take stock of the problems in the province after the party’s dismal performance in the polls there.
Between now and after the party’s special national executive committee (NEC) meeting scheduled for early September, the KwaZulu-Natal PEC cannot take any big decisions concerning the party.
One of the issues was that it had been difficult to convince people to vote for us because people were told that this president is wrong. Now leaders were coming to say he’s right
— Anonymous senior ANC leader
According to insiders who attended the NWC’s meeting with the PEC on Monday, Ramaphosa and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula communicated this decision at the close of the meeting.
The PEC cannot dissolve any structure or make any changes to the leadership of structures. It is also barred from convening any regional conferences.
The insiders said there had been murmurs the KwaZulu-Natal PEC was planning to remove eThekwini’s regional leaders and install a task team. According to insiders, the plan was to put this task team in place before a conference rumoured to have been planned for November or December.
However, some NWC insiders said the PEC was not necessarily being stripped of its powers, but merely being instructed to “hang 10" until after the special NEC meeting. One of the insiders said the instruction had been issued because some in the NEC wanted the KwaZulu-Natal leadership to be dissolved, and any major initiative the PEC launched before that happened might be difficult to reverse.
The insider said some people, especially those in the KwaZulu-Natal PEC, interpreted the message by Ramaphosa and Mbalula that they should not make any big decisions as the NWC stripping them of their powers.
The NWC visited various ANC branches in KwaZulu-Natal, whose members explained that the ANC’s internal dynamics had played a big role in the party’s performance at the polls.
The stance taken against Ramaphosa ahead of the 2022 Nasrec conference had eventually come back to bite the ANC.
The leadership of the ANC in the province — including its provincial secretary, Bheki Mtolo — had branded Ramaphosa a criminal who should not lead the ANC, owing to the Phala Phala scandal.
Mtolo, the PEC and most KwaZulu-Natal branches supported Zweli Mkhize, who was challenging Ramaphosa for the ANC presidency.
The branches said it had been difficult to convince voters that the same person who had been branded a criminal should now receive their support in the elections.
The PEC is said to have been taken to task, not only by the NWC, but also by the branches during last week’s visit.
“We were reporting on what we found [out] from the branches. One of the issues was that it had been difficult to convince people to vote for us because people were told that this president is wrong. Now leaders were coming to say he’s right. It was difficult to convince people about that,” said a senior ANC leader.
Another regional leader concurred: “What we said is that the way we handle internal election campaigns must be revisited. We were very disparaging in 2022, and people believed us. We were telling anyone who would listen about Phala Phala and how the president was protecting corrupt people in his faction. We said he was targeting Zuma, and people believed us.”
The NWC also heard about how the party had been infiltrated by people pretending to be ANC members and supporters who were actually IFP and MK Party members.
Regional leaders said this was how the two parties had eaten away the ANC base.
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