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Consistency, truth and the ANC’s Fikile Mbalula Problem

Consistency, truth and the ANC’s Fikile Mbalula Problem
Stephen Grootes
By Stephen Grootes
31 Jul 2023
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While many look forward to the post-2024 election political landscape, the ANC remains by far its most consequential factor. And, after the president, the most important person within the ANC is usually the secretary-general. Fikile Mbalula is in a position where he could alter the trajectory of the party and potentially the entire country. But recent events suggest that what he says cannot be entirely relied upon, posing a significant danger to the party.

The history of the ANC reveals just how important the position of secretary-general is. There was a time when some people believed Gwede Mantashe, in that position, was the most powerful person in South Africa.

At other times, it was the situation in that office that determined the difference between cohesion and disunity in the ANC. In short, all disputes — between individuals, branches, regions, provinces and leagues — end up in this office. It is often the secretary-general who decides who wins and who loses, and on which technical points.

This is why Mbalula is so important. And yet.

It is also why it is so important for the secretary-general to be consistent and tell the truth. As is often stated, politics is about the message. In the case of Mbalula, he will not be able to succeed as ANC secretary-general unless his word is trusted, his threats have a bite, and he is seen as a steady hand on the tiller in perennially turbulent waters.

Crucially, the ANC secretary-general must be careful to ensure harmony in the top leadership of the ANC, otherwise the organisation will crumble into warring factions.

Several recent incidents suggest that Mbalula is finding this difficult.

First, there was Mbalula’s comment that the ANC chair, Gwede Mantashe, was wrong to “defy” President Cyril Ramaphosa and refuse to attend a signing ceremony involving several European leaders. 

For the secretary-general to take on such a senior ANC leader in public is almost unheard of. And it was an empty comment, as it is unimaginable that Ramaphosa will remove Mantashe. 

Then came his comments about Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

Speaking at the ANC Women’s League conference, Mbalula said he was telling Gordhan “to move faster or we will move you”.

This was interpreted as an order for Gordhan to resolve the Transnet Freight Rail issue (where a Chinese SOE is refusing to provide maintenance services for Transnet while the SA Revenue Service insists that the company pays it R3.6-billion) or be fired from Cabinet.

That forced the ANC to issue a public statement clarifying the comments.

‘That minister cried so much’


Then Mbalula said in isiXhosa what has been translated by TimesLIVE as: “That minister cried so much, I had to change my position and issue a statement. That minister cried and complained to the president; why am I singling him out?”

He went on to say that ANC National Executive Committee member Derek Hanekom was a “freelancer” and that he was going to attend to “that freelancer”. Hanekom had commented about Mbalula’s earlier statements on Twitter.

This suggests that Mbalula was rebuked by Ramaphosa for his Gordhan comments and that it was Ramaphosa who instructed the ANC’s communications machinery to dial back the comments.

Normally, the ANC’s spokespeople and communications machinery are under the control of the secretary-general. This suggests that either Ramaphosa overruled Mbalula directly, or he ordered Mbalula to issue that clarification himself.

And finally, over this last weekend, Mbalula released a statement claiming that registration delays at the ANC Veterans’ League conference were responsible for his speech starting two hours late.

News24 reported that the league’s leader, Snuki Zikalala, then told Ramaphosa that in fact the speech was delayed because Mbalula arrived late.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pBNnzDZwU8

On Monday morning, Zikalala told SAfm that Mbalula had not lied, but that there had been a misunderstanding and the entire thing was a storm in teacup.

But considering Mbalula’s non-reputation for punctuality, people will be forgiven for having different views on what really occurred.

No one who paid any attention to Mbalula’s career before he was elected to this position will be surprised by any of this.

A reputation for diplomacy (not)


The closest he has ever come to having a reputation for diplomacy was his non-trip to Ukraine as Russia launched its invasion there.

He once had to apologise for comments he made, under no pressure whatsoever, while addressing taxi drivers. The SA Council of Churches felt so aggrieved they publicly asked if ministers needed guidelines for speaking in public.

And, of course, there is the finding that he received money from a sporting goods businessperson, which he spent on a family holiday to Dubai.

All of this may lead to questions about his credibility. But perhaps even more important than that, it will lead to questions about whether the voice of the ANC can be trusted.

For example, one of the most pressing questions at this moment is whether the ANC will work in a coalition with the EFF. Investors, businesspeople and the DA will probably base some of their most important decisions on the answer to this question.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-07-03-nkandla-we-have-a-problem-moonshot-pact-takes-shape-aiming-at-the-anc-eff-in-2024/

This makes any public comment by any official in the ANC vitally important.

For some, when Mbalula says that the ANC must pull out of its cooperation agreements with the EFF in Gauteng metros because, “We can’t go with people who want to see us out of power”, this means that the ANC won’t work with the EFF in national government.

But, in the past, Mbalula and EFF leader Julius Malema have worked closely together. Sometimes their rhetoric has resonated, and the occasional photographic evidence of a social relationship between them has emerged.

Before he suddenly started supporting everything Ramaphosa did, Mbalula campaigned as a radical and was in the very centre of Jacob Zuma’s support faction ahead of the ANC’s Polokwane conference in 2007.

How can his word be trusted?


This makes the question of whether Mbalula really wants to end the ANC’s relationship with the EFF difficult to assess. While he may now be saying that he wants to end these agreements, how can his word be trusted?

Mbalula’s recent comments also create other problems.

It is well known that the secretary-general of the ANC plays an important role in any Cabinet reshuffle. In some cases, it’s been reported they were present when ministers were told of their appointment or removal. Their job was to represent the party, to make the point that the decision about a particular minister was a decision of the party, and not just the President (even though, strictly legally, this is entirely up to the President).

And, when the secretary-general of the ANC has disagreed with the President on a reshuffle, it’s been a sign the party’s top leadership disagrees with the President — as happened with Jacob Zuma’s sacking of Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister in 2015 and of Pravin Gordhan in 2017.

This shows that comments made by an ANC secretary-general about Cabinet ministers really matter. If ministers feel they do not have the support of the party, they simply cannot govern. And they need this support consistently.

This is the risk that Mbalula is taking, that once no one believes his word, his powers will disappear.

While this may be self-harming, the damage is not limited to him.

Because of the position he holds, every ill-judged utterance by Mbalula will damage the ANC itself. Based on his previous track record, there are likely to be many more to come. How it will affect the party that he aspires to fully lead one day, remains to be seen. Our guess is, not well. DM

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