ANC members who are eagerly awaiting the party’s official report on the dragging budget process and the continued fallout with the DA must hold their breath until the ordinary national executive committee (NEC) meeting in June, as there are no plans for a special sitting any time before that, for now.
According to ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, who was interviewed by Sunday World Engage, the only planned NEC is the ordinary quarterly meeting scheduled for the end of June to mark the conclusion of the second quarter of 2025.
This situation persists despite increasing pressure and disagreement among senior ANC members regarding how the DA interacts with the former liberation movement within the government of national unity (GNU).
Many NEC members have taken exception to the DA’s antics during the tabling of the national budget fiasco as well as the court cases the blue party has launched against the government that it is part of.
ANC may face further electoral decline
The dissenting voices within the NEC believe that the ANC has already experienced enough embarrassment, and if the DA continues unchecked, the ANC may face further electoral decline in the local government elections in 2026.
Bhengu-Motsiri said: “The next NEC will be somewhere at the end of June as a scheduled regular meeting. At this point there is no special NEC planned.
“At this point we have not determined that the NEC must be called before then [June], but there are mechanisms of consulting internally without convening a meeting of the entire NEC.
“The caucus meeting was one example of this, and we also have the national working committee [NWC] meeting scheduled for this week. If the matters are such that an NEC meeting should be called, that should come out of the process of the NWC.
“The national officials will make a determination about when we go to the full NEC meeting to present a report about the budget process, about the state of the GNU, and about other issues.”
But some high-ranking leaders say there is a deliberate manoeuvre to suppress anti-GNU voices by deferring the NEC — “a pain they can run away from now, but that day will still come”, according to a senior party official.
Chickens will come home to roost
The lobby against the DA believes that the call for the special NEC is being frowned upon, hoping that the anger over the DA will have subsided by the time of the ordinary NEC late in June.
“People are seemingly scared of convening the special NEC. What they do not realise is that they can prolong the pain, but that time will come. Many people in the NEC are gatvol about the DA’s antics.
“But some in our ranks every day find they are at pains to justify the unjustifiable. We cannot be tolerant of the DA and be irritable with Solly Mapaila of the ANC alliance partner, the SACP.
“It cannot be. They can run for now, but eventually the NEC must get the report and discuss the issue.”
The ANC leader said that even the address to the ANC caucus in the National Assembly, which backfired with MPs rebelling and calling for the DA to be chucked out, was a way to pretend the ANC was handling the DA matter well.
“People are going to parliament pretending it is an engagement. You go to parliament to brief deployees. On whose mandate?
“Eventually the chickens will come home to roost; we will have to trust the process on this one. There is no need to fight.”
