The South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco), an ANC ally, has made a public call for the heads of both ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Siboniso Duma and secretary-general Bheki Mtolo.
This comes after bruising elections that saw the party lose its outright majority, dropping from number one to three in the provincial leadership.
The MK Party of former president Jacob Zuma leads the province with 45% of the votes, followed by the IFP with 18%. The ANC’s support fell to 17% from 54.2% in 2019.
“By all measures and standards possible in all laws applicable, a 17% vote is a humiliating failure of humongous magnitude. This has never been seen in the history of the ANC.
“The ANC has never gotten 17% even in the Western Cape, a province that is a known DA stronghold,” Sanco said.
Vote of no confidence
Sanco also noted that the election results were a vote of no confidence in the leadership collective led by both Duma and Mtolo.
“As they say, numbers do not lie; effectively, as of May 29, the current ANC PEC [provincial executive committee] ceased to be the leaders of society.”
The ANC suffered its heaviest electoral defeat since the dawn of democracy.
Nationally, the party plummeted to a mediocre 40%, while in KZN, one of its key provinces controlling over R150-billion in budget, it was reduced to a small party, recording a paltry 17% of the voter share.
This means the ANC managed only 14 seats out of 80 available seats in the provincial legislature.
The organisation also said Duma and Mtolo had wittingly or unwittingly masterminded the demise of the ANC in the province, citing their public shenanigans.
Disbanding the PEC
“The ANC PEC of KwaZulu-Natal must also take a lion’s share of the blame for the ANC dropping below 50%.
“Sanco also believes that this is the culmination of all the grotesque disasters that the ANC provincial chairperson, comrade Sboniso Duma and the ANC provincial secretary, comrade Bheki Mtolo, have been exposing the ANC KZN to,” it said.
Sanco’s stance throws spanners in the works of amplified calls for the PEC to be disbanded.
Sunday World reported at the weekend that some senior party sources at Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters, said the party agreed to dissolve the structure.
This will apparently be done immediately when the party concludes talks about forming a government of national unity with other political parties.
KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape, apart from the Western Cape, where the DA retained power, are the only two provinces where the ANC lost its majority.
In the Northern Cape, the ANC recorded 49.3%, a decline of 8.24% when compared to the 2019 election outcome.
Coalition government
But the ANC has poured cold water over the suggestion that the PEC in KwaZulu-Natal will fall on its sword.
“The party is taking collective responsibility. No provinces will be disbanded because of the performance in the recent elections,” said ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri.
Sanco has also called for the IFP, ANC, and MK Pary to form a government, with the IFP serving as the leader of government and giving the green light for IFP chairperson in the province, Thami Ntuli, to be sworn in as premier.
Duma is likely to be the first ANC chairperson who does not become premier.
When the Taliban faction, which supported both Duma and Mtolo, amassed power in the July 2022 ANC provincial conference, it opted to appoint Nomusa Dube-Ncube as premier.
Dube-Ncube had failed to make it to the ballot during the party’s elections, where she was vying for provincial chairperson.
She received a nomination from the floor, but the delegates rejected her candidacy.
