Nomvula Mokonyane announced an apparent u-turn on the decision to reconfigure the ANC’s provincial structures in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. Picture: GCIS
The African National Congress (ANC) has turned its attention away from a plan to reconfigure its provincial executive committees (PECs) in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
In January, the party’s national executive committee (NEC) decided it was time to reconfigure party leadership structures in the two province. The plan would have seen senior party leaders in those provinces, where the ANC fared poorly in the 2024 elections, be replaced.
At the time secretary-general Fikile Mbalula’s push for disbandment met resistance from an emerging anti-GNU faction represented by the likes of Panyaza Lesufi.
But during a visit to Pietermaritzburg this week, Nomvula Mokonyane, the ANC’s first deputy secretary-general, said the reconfiguration was no longer a priority for the party.
“We have other pressing issues that require our attention at this point,” she said, adding that “significant improvements” in support for the party, demonstrated by recent by-elections, were cause for optimism.
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Push-back prompts u-turn
Although Mokonyane was confident that the KZN leadership had “turned over a new leaf” since the May elections, when the party slipped from 54% to 37%, a political analyst is not convinced.
Professor Andre Duvenhage, research director and political analyst at North-West University (NWU), saw the u-turn as no less than pushback from one side and weakness on the other.
“There is strong resistance [and] there is an inability of the ANC to act. It’s also reflecting the inability of Cyril Ramaphosa to take decisions within the framework of the ANC,” he said.
Warning that the party’s inability to implement decisions would cost it dearly in the next election, he said it was evident that “the ANC is in difficult circumstances, at the moment, in Gauteng” and that “when we look at the KZN scenario, it’s even worse”.
