The ANC has called on its members to hold on lobbying for positions in anticipation of the 2027 national conference which is expected to elect a new leadership with President Cyril Ramaphosa who is serving a second term not expected to stand for reelection.
The party’s secretary general Fikile Mbalula briefed the media on the sidelines of the National Executive Committee meeting that got underway on Thursday in Boksburg and vowed to suppress any discussion debates.
Mbalula said the party needed to focus on regaining lost ground following the May 29 election.
“ we’re saying we must not be diverted and that we come from a terrible, horrible, disastrous election campaign that gave us 40 percent and the first thing you think about is who becomes the leader after president Ramaphosa, it can’t be. That discussion we are going to suppress it to the moon and back,” said Mbalula.
The ANC has a history of divisive succession with the most recent being the Jacob Zuma presidential campaign which was launched in 2004 and interestingly led by among others Mbalula himself who was at the time a newly elected leader of the party’s once powerful youth league.
Zuma’s campaign eventually succeeded in 2007 when he narrowly defeated then incumbent Thabo Mbeki at the now famous Polokwane conference.
Now secretary general, Mbalula said the party needed to focus its energies to ensuring that the Government of National Unity it leads alongside the Democratic Alliance and others delivers to South Africans and on working on regaining its majority which it lost for the first time during the May 29 election.
Mbalula said the party respects the rights of members to discuss leadership to elect their preferred candidates.