South Africa

ANC announces 67-member KZN task team to address ‘existential threat’ after election clobbering

From left: KwaZulu-Natal provincial task team first deputy Weziwe Thusi, convenor Jeff Radebe, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula, provincial task team coordinator Mike Mabuyakhulu, Mabuyakhulu’s deputy Nomusa Dube and task team provincial fundraiser Nomagugu Simelane.(Photo: Supplied)

By Chris Makhaye

25 Feb 2025

The rise of the MK party saw the ANC’s vote plummet in the 2024 general election in KZN. The party is looking to a new task team, led by Jeff Radebe, to revive its fortunes.

The ANC finally announced the full complement of its 67-member KwaZulu-Natal provincial task team (PTT) on Tuesday, 25 February 2025, which seems to include or accommodate members of the party’s various regions and factions.

The party also paraded the task team’s top six structure, which will lead the province into the 2026 local government elections and beyond until the next elective provincial conference.

Veteran ANC politician Jeff Radebe was officially unveiled as the ANC KZN provincial convenor. His first deputy is another veteran, Weziwe Thusi, and his second deputy is Sboniso Duma, who was the former ANC KZN provincial leader until the province’s leadership was “reconfigured”.

Mike Mabuyakhulu assumes the position of the coordinator and will sit in the office of provincial secretary, which was until recently occupied by Bheki Mtolo, who remains part of the task team, but was completely removed from the provincial secretariat.

Mabuyakhulu’s deputy is Nomusa Dube, the longstanding MEC and KZN premier until the ANC lost the province in 2024, when an IFP-led coalition (which includes the ANC) took control. Nomagugu Simelane, who was forced to relinquish her position as the KZN provincial deputy chairperson, is the task team’s provincial fundraiser.

Read more: ANC turn to old hands Jeff Radebe and Amos Masondo to revive Gauteng, KZN

The rest of the bloated task team comprises veterans such as former KZN premier and ambassador Sbu Ndebele, former deputy health minister Sbongiseni Dhlomo and many other former provincial executive committee members.

Task team’s ‘mammoth’ job

Announcing the new leadership, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said none of the former provincial executive committee (PEC) members had been thrown out on the street, and even the former secretary Mtolo would still be fully employed by the ANC until the next ANC provincial conference.

“We went to an election and we were clobbered. We are facing an existential threat and we had to take decisive action,” said Mbalula.

“With this task team, we have got everyone on board. This PTT has been given a mammoth task and they will be monitored. We will work flat out to ensure it does work. The time to lament and kowtow [to] other political parties is over,” he said about the ANC’s failure to respond to the challenge posed by Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party.

He said the team’s performance would be judged by whether it could recover the ground the ANC lost in recent elections.

Read more: How Zuma’s MK party ruthlessly outmanoeuvred the ANC in KZN

Addressing the media for the first time since his appointment to the coordinator’s position, Mabuyakhulu said the changes in the KZN ANC leadership did not pose a threat to the KZN government of provincial unity (GPU), in which the ANC had four MEC portfolios. The IFP’s Thamsanqa Ntuli is premier and the party has four MECs; the Democratic Alliance (DA) has two MECs and the National Freedom Party (NFP) has one.

“We are definitely part of the GPU and we will give full and maximum support to the (ANC) MECs serving in the GPU,” said Mabuyakhulu.

“As the PTT we have been given clear marching orders and we are ready for the task. Now our task is to finalise a programme of action,” he said.

Radebe said the task team would meet for the first time on Monday, 3 March, to draw a battle plan and would soon be inviting cadres from all the regions to help revive ANC structures in the province.

ANC leaders explain reconfiguration

At the weekend, the ANC sent National Working Committee (NWC) and NEC members to KZN regions to explain the rationale behind the leadership changes and to plead for the regions, zones and branches to support the incoming reconfigured leadership.

NEC member Zizi Kodwa addressed ANC structures. He told journalists that after a period of animosity towards the ANC in KZN, the sand was now shifting towards the party, with old members returning en masse and new members joining.

Another NEC member, Mduduzi Manana, led the delegation that met and conferred with the troubled Musa Dladla Region at a venue in Empangeni. This region is located in Zululand, the home turf of MK founder and leader Zuma, where his party recruited ANC members and demolished the ANC in the May 2024 polls.

Manana explained the NEC’s resolutions and the need to rebuild and restructure the provincial leadership to meet challenges posed by the party’s new reality.

A regional leader who was present, but asked not to be named as he did not have a mandate for speaking to the media, said: “We explained to Manana and others what led to what the MK did to us in Musa Dladla Region and in all of KZN.

“The branches of the ANC were and are still very weak, divided along factional lines. Many of our members loved Zuma beyond measure… to such an extent that they chose him above the organisation. Now some of them are not happy in the new party. But we, as the ANC, must start from scratch. It’s not going to be easy, but we will try,” he said.

Mdumiseni Ntuli, ANC chief whip in the National Assembly and a member of the NWC and NEC, led a delegation that spent the weekend in the Moses Mabhida (KZN Midlands) region.

Njabulo Mtolo, spokesman for the ANC Moses Mabhida Region, told Daily Maverick that they were excited to hear from the national leadership about the changes.

He said his region, like most ANC structures in the province, had been in limbo after the announcement earlier this year that the provincial structure would be disbanded and replaced.

Read more: ANC in KZN and Gauteng told to suspend activities ahead of ‘reconfiguration’

“We told Ntuli that we welcome a movement and a decision on this matter and we, as the region, will embrace and work with the new leadership and adhere to all resolutions and programmes. We also expressed our hope that the new leaders will be able to rise to the occasion and rebuild the ANC to be a force that it has always been, a leader of society.

“In this region, the MK was able to tear us apart chiefly because it surprised us and when it emerged, we didn’t have ammunition to counter its offensive. Now the tables are turning, people are starting to believe in the ANC,” said Mtolo.

“We have won two by-elections by a landslide in areas where the MK Party had outperformed us in [the] May [2024] general elections.

Read more: ANC ends 2024 with a bang after sensational ward victories in KZN, Northern Cape

He said his region was preparing for a massive by-election campaign in Richmond Local Municipality’s Ward 12, where an ANC councillor resigned and relocated to Cape Town after landing a new job.

“Many of the people who left for the MK party are coming back to the ANC, saying the grass is not greener on the other side,” he added.

eThekwini in limbo

Until recently, eThekwini had been the ANC’s biggest region in the country by membership. It has been known as the stronghold of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, with the region harbouring the party’s most fervent supporters and voters. This is not the case any more.

In the 2024 elections, just over 1.2 million votes were cast in eThekwini Municipality. The MK party took 48%, followed by the DA with 23% and the ANC with 14%. The ANC’s support was obliterated in its former strongholds Umlazi, Inanda, Clermont, KwaMashu and others.

The eThekwini ANC regional leadership has been limping since its previous elective conference in August 2022 when Zandile Gumede was elected as the ANC eThekwini regional chairperson. Gumede, the former eThekwini Municipality mayor, is one of the 21 accused in the ongoing fraud, corruption and money-laundering case involving the multimillion-rand waste water tender issued by the city under her watch.

The party’s step-aside rule was set in motion, thus rendering the region largely leaderless.

The ANC eThekwini region is also at risk of being disbanded and replaced with a task team because its structures in branches and zones have collapsed after the battering from the MK party.

Musa Ncika, ANC eThekwini regional secretary, told EWN that his region would accept any eventual decision taken by the ANC national leadership.

“That will become the part and terms of reference of the reconfigured structures because I think part of their mandate as well will be to do the assessments on regions and drill down on the issues and the challenges,” he said. DM

Categories:

South Africa

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

South Africa

Task team’s ‘mammoth’ job

ANC leaders explain reconfiguration

eThekwini in limbo