'You don’t build by disbanding' — Mbalula about KZN ANC

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has downplayed talk of disbanding the party’s structures in KwaZulu-Natal after its annihilation by Jacob Zuma’s MK party in the May general elections.

“There is no preoccupation on the part of the national working committee (NWC) about the disbandment of structures and the provincial executive committee (PEC) in particular,” he said on Monday.

Mbalula addressed journalists on the sidelines of the ANC NWC meeting in Durban.

The NWC members have been on a two-day visit to KwaZulu-Natal to get feedback from party structures about the elections programme and at the same time to update them about the decisions the party has undertaken since the formation of a government of national unity (GNU) at national level and the government of provincial unity which is led by the IFP in that province.

KwaZulu-Natal is the ANC’s biggest province in terms of membership numbers. It was also the province most affected by the emergence of the MK Party as it dropped from 54.22% in 2019 to 16.99%, with the MK Party winning 45.35% of the provincial vote.

“This is our biggest province in the country, and we have been seriously hammered, (we) suffered a serious setback. We lost the biggest numbers in terms of votes from this province,” said Mbalula.

He said the NWC was receiving reports from its members who were deployed in the party’s 11 regions of the province about the state of the organisation.

The NWC will reflect on the reports and chart a way forward in terms of strengthening the PEC and building a strong ANC in KwaZulu-Natal.

Asked about the possible disbandment of the PEC, Mbalula said: “I can’t comment on that at the present moment. From where I was deployed in eThekwini, something like that did not arise from the structures on the ground.

“The preoccupation here is how we lost and what needs to be done in the province. I cannot comment about disbandment as disbandment is not the preoccupation of our visit.”

He said some may wish for that “but you don’t build by disbanding”.

“There are important things that need to be done to strengthen this province. First, with a proper understanding and a diagnosis of what actually happened in this province from the point of view of the elections. Why we lost so many people, why people did not come out and vote in their numbers (for the ANC).”

Mbalula also appeared to answer his own questions, acknowledging that the formation of the MK Party cost the ANC.

“The only thing for us is to understand what went wrong for us to lose this majority, I think we know what went wrong: Jacob Zuma formed a political party and challenged the ANC and won the majority in the province.

“The numbers that he got, it was the ANC constituency in the main. That’s what went wrong in KZN in particular.”

He said while the ANC was likely to “bounce back very strong” nationally as it is resolving people’s issues, and doing what it promised to do in its manifesto, there was no guarantee that it will reclaim the lost ground in KwaZulu-Natal.

The NWC meeting will be followed by a programme of action in the province, strengthening of governance and the rebuilding of the structures of the organisation.

“This is not the time to squabble and do finger-pointing. This is the time to understand what went wrong and how do we reclaim the lost ground. This is what is important for us.

“We did go down (in 1994) but came back, and came back very strong but it’s not a guarantee that we will come back, it’s going to depend on what we are going to do as a party as we are struggling to come back in the Western Cape.”

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