ANC results: Ramaphosa will not resign, say Mantashe, Mokonyane and Mbalula - News24

ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe has rubbished a report that the party’s top seven, President Cyril Ramaphosa included, discussed resigning after the party’s poor showing in the local government elections.

“There was no discussion like that,” he told News24 on Sunday.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said: “That’s rubbish, resign for what? Ayikho leyonto (that is not true).”

A third member of the top seven, ANC deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane, told News24 the Sunday Times report was devoid of truth.

“These calls are devoid of any objective evidence, and they once again seek to further divide the ANC. Comrade president led in thought and in person in these elections. The ANC requires space to have a scientific and objective assessment that must guide us on the way forward. Removing or recalling the president is not an answer. We have been there before,” she said.

This comes after the ANC lost control of all the country’s metros and went below 50% in all provinces, except Limpopo. Nationally, the ANC’s support was at 31%.

The newspaper, citing several national executive committee (NEC) members, reported that Ramaphosa raised the prospect of resigning as party leader, triggering an extraordinary discussion about who should take responsibility for the electoral collapse.

According to the report, at least five sources said Ramaphosa suggested he step down – but the proposal met resistance from second deputy secretary-general Maropene Ramokgopa, who reportedly urged him to calm down and consider an early national conference in April instead.

The report follows an interview in which the ANC’s chief whip and elections head Mdumiseni Ntuli told Newzroom Afrika that the NEC should honestly confront the ANC’s continued decline.

“Remember, we were elected in 2022. This is the second decline under our own leadership,” he said.

“The question naturally arises: to what extent have we lived up to the commitments and the responsibility of being the apex leadership of the movement over the past four years, four and a half years, as we’re coming closer to the end of our term of office?”

Ntuli continued: “We have been facing a terrible tragedy of an organisation that is declining, but it has been rapid over the past two elections. And what does that mean? We’ll have to answer that question.”

The decline had accelerated “in a manner that is unprecedented”, with the party below 50% since 2024.

Ntuli did not call for the NEC to be dissolved or Ramaphosa to resign.

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told News24 any accountable leader would reflect on his own performance and that of his organisation at key milestones, such as the elections.

Magwenya said: “There are political processes that one would safely assume will now ensue to review his party’s electoral performance; I can’t comment on those party processes. However, from the perspective of government and the governance of the country, the president is extremely sensitive towards any move that will create instability and governance uncertainty.

“He is a process man. He is going to thoroughly engage his party’s processes, and from the country’s presidency, he is going to continue to drive local government reforms. He has championed the development of the white paper on local government reforms, and he will continue to lead the local government reform process.”

Generally, said Magwenya, Ramaphosa has never laid any claim of entitlement to leadership.

But he added: “The stability of the country’s governance is fundamentally important to him.”

“The president is on record in his open and transparent reflections on the failure of local government to deliver services, hence his championing of local government reforms. Some of the failures are self-made in part, with respect to those in leadership positions being incapable of leading and delivering and on the other hand, result from real complexities that have to be properly understood and fixed.”

Magwenya said this is what Ramaphosa would focus on going forward, despite the political noise and its origins.

Calls for Ramaphosa’s head, and the NEC’s, have grown louder on social media.

Economist Duma Gqubule, an outspoken critic of the ANC, said on X: “After four electoral disasters, Cyril Ramaphosa must resign and not listen to Gwede. He is the least popular ANC president since 1994. He lost 22 percentage points in two national elections and 23 percentage points in two local elections. His economic record is the worst since 1994.”

Prof Busani Ngcaweni, director of the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Public Policy and African Studies, said: “The rudderless NEC must dissolve.”

News24 understands Ramaphosa is aware of a strategy to blame him for the results.

An informed source close to Ramaphosa said those around him had always anticipated a strategy to exploit local government failures to remove the president and had prepared for it, pointing to how ANC provincial and regional structures had undermined his interventions on several occasions.

For example, the insider said there was resistance when Ramaphosa established the eThekwini Presidential Working Group as the metro spiralled, and a parallel “bomb squad” in Johannesburg created confusion over which structure was responsible.

“We’ve always understood that some people are working on a strategy to then hang the ANC’s electoral failure around the president’s neck. It’s not surprising that you have this noise now,” the source said.

Secondly, removing Ramaphosa would not solve the ANC’s troubles.

The source added that the ANC was in decline because of a poor governing record, particularly at local government level, and Ramaphosa did not directly run municipalities; regional structures had far more direct influence.

Until the ANC examined the calibre of people elected at regional and branch level, it would not fix local government.

Thirdly, poorly trained people continue to influence local government.

The ANC’s post-matric requirement for all councillor candidates was rolled back after pushback from some quarters; a retreat, the source said, did not give voters confidence that their problems would be resolved.

“The removal of the president has got nothing to do with these elections,” the source said, referring to the so-called radical economic transformation sections within and outside the ANC, dominant during Jacob Zuma’s presidency.

The faction apparently wants Ramaphosa gone to enable an ANC-MKP-EFF coalition, viewing him as “the main, strongest person against that attempt”.

The campaign dated from his 2017 ANC presidential bid through his 2022 re-election.

“That anti-Ramaphosa campaign has never rested.”

Ramaphosa did not say he wanted to resign, the source said.

“The president is simply saying, let us reflect and take accountability as the leadership. That does not necessarily mean him alone resigning or all of the top officials resigning. It just says, let us reflect and take full stock of our own responsibility for this electoral outcome.”

ANC structures, branches, regional, provincial and the NEC must all reflect.

“They want to capture the state. They want to capture the government all over again, and there’s only one man standing against that; it’s the president, and that’s why he must be removed under all sorts of disingenuous and false notions.”

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