ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula has emerged from the party’s bruising legal battle over candidate nominations with his position strengthened, while his deputy, Nomvula Mokonyane, is facing mounting pressure amid deepening tensions within the governing party.
Senior ANC insiders say Mokonyane has been openly at odds with Mbalula over the handling of the nomination crisis and broader questions of party management.
While Mbalula has sought to project control, Mokonyane’s camp has questioned his leadership style and his grip on the administrative machinery of Luthuli House.
According to the insiders, Mokonyane’s allies used the nomination crisis to question Mbalula’s competence and lobby for his removal, calculating that an electoral embarrassment would fatally wound him.
Mokonyane, a former premier and long-time party deployee with her own presidential ambitions, has been positioning herself as an alternative centre of power.
However, the Constitutional Court’s ruling in favour of the ANC has shifted the balance of power decisively in Mbalula’s favour, dealing a blow to those who sought to use the crisis against him.
Mbalula revealed that he was left in tears during the party’s bruising legal battle, accusing some of his own colleagues of exploiting the crisis to target him politically.
He was speaking on Thursday following the Constitutional Court judgment that saved the ANC from electoral disaster by setting aside the Electoral Court’s decision and directing the IEC to include the party’s lists on ballot papers.
The ruling was a lifeline for the ANC, which had faced the prospect of not fielding candidates in affected municipalities after failing to press the “submit as final” button in the IEC’s electronic nomination system.
But Mbalula’s emotional response revealed that the legal victory has done little to paper over deep cracks inside the party’s top brass.
“ANC members must learn and they must respect leadership. We must not use these issues to sustain factional tendencies in our organisation,” Mbalula said.
“We could all see that the ANC was up against each other and I’m in tears because I was singled out and attacked even by people I work with in my own collective. Even when I gave them reports. It’s not that they did not believe. It’s because they want to catch Fikile Mbalula.”
Mbalula’s extraordinary admission that he was targeted by his own comrades points directly to the bruising succession fight ahead of the ANC’s next national conference.
He said the possibility of the ANC being unable to field candidates in affected municipalities had weighed heavily on him, particularly given the implications for communities where the party governs.
The ANC had argued that it had completed the required forms and uploaded supporting documents before the August 28 deadline, despite failing to complete the final electronic submission step. The IEC had maintained that pressing “submit as final” was mandatory and non-negotiable.
The apex court disagreed, finding in favour of the ANC’s argument that the right to vote and to contest elections should not be determined solely by a technical step in an electronic submission system.
The secretary-general maintained that the ANC had pursued the dispute through lawful channels and that the party was defending a constitutional principle, not just its own interests.
But it is his next admission that has set tongues wagging in Luthuli House.
Mbalula confirmed the ANC is now investigating alleged changes to its candidate lists, adding that a full report would be produced on the matter. He conceded that any unauthorised changes to the lists were an internal party issue rather than a problem caused by the IEC — a tacit admission that sabotage may have occurred from within.
He said the dispute had exposed divisions within the party, accusing some members of exploiting the nomination process to pursue their own political agendas.
Mokonyane had not responded to questions sent by text by the time of going to print.