The ANC is once again washing its dirty linen in public, with Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula and NEC member Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma squaring off in the Johannesburg High Court over explosive claims that Mbalula bought his way to the top job.
What should have been an internal party matter has exploded into a full-blown defamation battle, exposing deep factional wounds that have refused to heal since the ANC’s bruising 55th national conference at Nasrec in December 2022.
Mbalula hauled Dlamini-Zuma to court this week after she alleged in an interview last month that he bribed delegates to secure the powerful secretary-general position.
The allegation was made during an African Renaissance podcast, where Dlamini-Zuma – who lost the presidential race to Cyril Ramaphosa at that same conference – claimed money changed hands to swing the SG contest in Mbalula’s favour.
Mbalula, through his lawyers, has vehemently denied the claims, arguing they are false, defamatory and calculated to discredit him.
On Tuesday, his lawyer, Advocate Smanga Setheni, told the court Dlamini-Zuma had produced no shred of evidence to support her statement of fact and questioned why she waited nearly four years to speak out.
“Since December 2022 to 3 August 2026, what kind of state of slumber was this? That today, you say, in Dr Ndlozi’s interview, that Mr Fikile Mbalula was distributing money,” Setheni argued.
“Now there is no iota of evidence presented by Dr NDZ to prove that allegation that she made as a statement of facts. Now there ought to be a prima facie evidence wrongfulness on the part of Mr Mbalula for you to succeed for this application to be dismissed.”
But Dlamini-Zuma is not backing down. She maintains that Mbalula did indeed bribe his way to the top – a charge that, if true, would delegitimise the entire current ANC leadership and confirm what many within the party have long whispered about money politics at Nasrec.
The courtroom exchange turned tense when Setheni’s “slumber” remark drew a sharp rebuke from Dlamini-Zuma’s counsel, Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, who demanded respect for his client, a former AU Commission chairperson and veteran of the movement.
“I would plead with my learned friend that we should treat both of them with some respect,” Sikhakhane said. “We should not talk about ‘slumber’. The fact that we respect parties does not mean we should, in any way, insult litigants.”
Dlamini-Zuma herself urged Mbalula’s legal team to keep their arguments respectful.
The spectacle seems to be a political nightmare for Luthuli House, a senior memeber of the ANC told Africa Daily on Tuesday afternoon.
He said this was the time for the ANC to try rebuild after losing its majority in 2024 and heading into the crucial 2026 local government elections as a wounded party in a Government of National Unity.
” Where have we seen the party’s top two leaders, the SG and a senior NEC member – fighting each other in open court over who bought votes?”
“This is unexplainable because it feeds a public perception that the ANC’s internal democracy is for sale, that conferences are auction houses rather than policy conventions, ” the source said, speaking on tbe sidelines of a Cosatu conference in Midrand on Tuesday.
Another delegate belonging to Cosatu was critical of the ANC saying they were shooting themselves on the foot.
“For an organisation that preaches renewal and anti-corruption, having its SG accused by its own NEC member of bribery – and then suing her in the High Court – is the very definition of shooting itself in the foot,” she said.
The case also lays bare the lingering animosity from Nasrec 2022, where Dlamini-Zuma challenged Ramaphosa for the presidency and lost, while Mbalula emerged victorious over Nomvula Mokonyane and Phumulo Masualle for the SG post.
The Johannesburg High Court has reserved judgment on Mbalula’s urgent application to have the statements declared defamatory and retracted.