Mbalula and Gungubele take flak at top-level ANC meeting - TimesLIVE

A marathon ANC meeting lasting almost 10 hours last week saw party secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and national executive committee (NEC) member Mondli Gungubele come under fire for their recent public comments.

The ANC’s national working committee (NWC) met last week on Monday to discuss the candidates’ list registration chaos that left the party fielding no candidates in some municipalities in the Eastern Cape and leaving out the names of others in various parts of the country.

But the meeting soon became dominated by debates over public utterances made by Mbalula and Gungubele amid the fallout over the party failing to submit the names of some of its candidates to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on time.

According to sources at the NWC meeting, Mbalula came under fire over his repeatedly referring to himself as “the boss” of the ANC, while others demanded that he fall on his sword over the list debacle, even though the party is now appealing the issue before the Constitutional Court.

On the other hand, Gungubele was censured by NWC members who were not happy about his “attacks” on Mbalula on social media. Soon after a video went viral showing Mbalula bragging about being “the boss” of the ANC, Gungubele took to social media, slamming the secretary-general for making light of the fact that some party structures would not have any candidates fielded in their municipalities owing mainly to failures by the party’s secretariat.

“It was bad. Look, we started the meeting at 2pm and came out at 11pm talking only about these two things of Mondli [Gungubele] and Mbalula. We did not talk about how we are going to save these elections,” said an NWC member.

“So it was just a fight, but it was not just a fight against Mbalula. The meeting was really tense and heated.”

The source of the conflict was a discussion over the terms of reference and scope of a forensic investigation the party says should be launched to find those responsible for leaving the ANC without candidates for elections in the Eastern Cape municipalities of Port St Johns, Ingquza Hill and a number of others.

Some NWC members wanted the investigation to be limited to the Eastern Cape, while others said the probe should start with Mbalula’s actions.

There was also disagreement over who should conduct the investigation. Some said it should be an internal process driven by Mbalula’s office, while others argued for an independent forensics company to be appointed under the supervision of party electoral committee head Kgalema Motlanthe.

Another source said NWC members had questioned why the forensic investigation should target the Eastern Cape when three provinces had been affected.

Gungubele, Zizi Kodwa and Khusela Diko are said to have led the charge against Mbalula — backed by others, including Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams — calling for him to take the fall for the list debacle and contending the forensic probe should look into his actions.

The trio are also said to have attacked Mbalula over his public remarks that he is “the boss” of the ANC.

“People spoke very strongly about this thing of ‘the boss’. It came up again strongly. He says he said it in jest, but there was no jest in that,” said another source who attended the meeting.

Another insider corroborated the attack over the “boss” remarks but said not all NWC members had agreed with the attack.

“The people who were strongly against Mbaks [Mbalula] about the boss thing and everything else were Mondli [Gungubele], Khusela [Diko] and Zizi [Kodwa],” said the NWC member.

Those who came to Mbalula’s defence, added the source, included President Cyril Ramaphosa, head of organising Mduduzi Manana and party policy head Fébé Potgieter-Gqubule.

ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) secretary-general Nokuthula Nqaba is also said to have defended Mbalula.

Mmamoloko Kubayi and second deputy secretary-general Maropene Ramokgopa are said to have called out the senior party leaders for using the meeting to discuss calling for Mbalula’s head instead of discussing how they were going to save the ANC in the upcoming elections.

“Maropene [Ramokgopa] told us that we come and sit here the whole day, but we want to talk about wanting the [secretary-general’s] head and not about the elections,” said one NWC member.

The leaders also locked horns over the refusal to call a meeting of the NEC, which last sat in May.

“The last time we had an NEC [meeting] was in May. The NWC said it must sit. The officials must now resolve it and decide when,” said a source.

But another NWC member said, based on the intense fight that took place at the NWC meeting this week, it was unlikely they would call an NEC meeting before the November elections.