Eastern Cape ANC shifts focus to local government elections

With the ANC in the Eastern Cape still grappling with legal challenges relating to the recent abortive provincial elective conference, the party’s regions have shifted focus to prepare for the 2026 local government elections.

Over the past few days, some ANC regions in the province hosted their regional general councils (RGCs), discussing plans, guidelines and strategies for the upcoming municipal polls.

ANC Eastern Cape spokesperson Yanga Zicina confirmed on Wednesday that RGCs were hosted in Amathole, Alfred Nzo, Joe Gqabi, Chris Hani and the Buffalo City Metro’s Dr WB Rubusana region between Friday and Monday.

Zicina said the gatherings were an important platform for members to renew their commitment to the people’s cause, strengthen unity, sharpen their ideological understanding of the party’s historic mission and deal with challenges.

He said the RGCs remained the party’s largest political school, bringing together delegates from ANC branches, members of the provincial executive committee, regional executive committee, the leagues, veterans, alliance partners and mass democratic movement formations.

“They serve as a platform for strengthening organisational unity, sharpening ideological understanding and discussing policy matters.

“RGCs are, therefore, a key mechanism for ensuring that national and provincial directives are disseminated to the grassroots, and that branches can provide input on the direction of the party.”

Zicina said the RGCs had, in the main, discussed the party’s roadmap and plans for the local elections.

New ward demarcations, the process to select potential councillors and mayors and updates on plans for the reconfiguration of the provincial conference were also discussed.

The ANC in the Eastern Cape once again finds itself trapped in a cycle of internal stinging conflict and jostling for power and proximity to resources, procedural contestation and political brinkmanship. What should have been a routine democratic process of rightfully electing leaders for a provincial conference has unfortunately instead exposed the depth of factional warfare and ideological fatigue gripping the party. The Eastern Cape has become a mirror reflecting the movement’s national malaise — declining legitimacy, weakened organisational discipline and a growing disconnect between leadership contests and the lived realities of citizens. It is then, therefore, against this backdrop that the latest conference turmoil is not merely about personalities or slates. It is about power, survival, patronage and networks that guarantee one’s future ambition, closeness to resources and the future character of a liberation movement struggling to reimagine itself in an era of electoral decline. For decades, the Eastern Cape symbolised the ethical roots of the ANC. Decisions emerging from the region were once treated with deference and respect across ANC structures. But instead of being a source of unity, the province has become synonymous with organisational paralysis. Governance failures at provincial and municipal level have further compounded the problem, weakening the ANC’s credibility among voters. The current turmoil must, therefore, be understood as historical, not episodic. It is the product of long‑standing institutional decay rather than a sudden breakdown. While media narratives often reduce ANC conflicts to factional personalities, the roots of the Eastern Cape crisis lie in process failures that can be clearly understood as an utter failure of the ANC to master the art of good governance and accountability that would lead to basic service delivery. Disputes over branch audits and credentialling remain at the core of conference instability. Control over conference outcomes is widely seen as control over access to state resources. This collapses the line between party renewal and patronage accumulation, ensuring that leadership contests are treated as zero‑sum battles. The decline of ideological training has hollowed out internal debate. Conferences are less about policy direction and more about slate arithmetic, leaving no room at all for the substantive renewal but slate politics that guarantees one a seat in the top table of dishing out tenders and resources to the “right group”. Within this volatile terrain, different leaders have emerged as symbolic anchors for rival groupings. What is striking, however, is not the fragmentation itself, but how narratives of momentum shape political outcomes even before formal processes conclude. At present, many ANC observers and insiders perceive the other camp as having gained a measure of tactical advantage for now but not because conflicts have been decisively resolved, but because of how the terrain has shifted. This perception rests on several factors: Organisational reach: Alignment with influential regional structures that have survived verification processes; Strategic positioning: Ability to frame internal conflict in the language of stabilisation rather than conquest; National signalling: Apparent tolerance and/or at least absence of open hostility from national leadership structures fatigued by perpetual provincial instability or just a mere and poor strategic posturing that signals confusion since they have been taken by surprise. Lost beneath factional manoeuvering is the cost borne by the public. The Eastern Cape continues to struggle with: Failing infrastructure; Administrative incapacity; Youth unemployment; Collapsing municipalities; Deepening poverty Each delayed conference, court challenge, or leadership vacuum weakens the state’s ability to respond to these crises. What unfolds in the Eastern Cape has national consequences. As the ANC approaches future electoral cycles under growing pressure, provinces such as the Eastern Cape represent both a liability and a warning. If internal democracy cannot be stabilised in its historical heartland, the party’s claims to national leadership become increasingly brittle. Moreover, the normalisation of conference instability undermines succession planning at national level. Leaders emerging from contested processes enter office weakened, forced to govern defensively rather than decisively. If there is a lesson in the current Eastern Cape conference turmoil, it must be read as a short‑term reprieve whose outcomes should not be mistaken for long‑term resolution as challenges are still confronting the movement. While certain actors are currently perceived as better positioned within the shifting balance of forces, the underlying conditions that produce instability remain intact. Without deep organisational reform, leadership renewal rooted in competence rather than factional alignment and a return to political education, the cycle will repeat. The ANC in the Eastern Cape is not suffering from a leadership deficit alone as it is facing an institutional reckoning. Whether this moment becomes a turning point or merely another chapter in a long decline depends not on who emerges ahead today, but on whether the movement can still remember what it once stood for. • Dr Xolisile Ngumbela, assistant dean, teaching and learning, faculty of management sciences, Central University of Technology

The ANC in the province, Zicina said, was hopeful that legal challenges that stalled the elective conference late in March would be resolved before the end of April.

Should that happen, the province could reconvene its conference by month-end.

The conference was put into “abeyance” after disgruntled party members took the ANC to court, citing alleged irregularities at branch meetings.

Party member Lwazi Rotya later obtained an interim interdict which effectively halted the gathering pending resolution of the disputes.

The matter has yet to be finalised.

Dr WB Rubusana regional secretary Anele Lizo confirmed that the RGC had on Monday discussed issues around the upcoming local elections.

Lizo said matters relating to the demarcation of new wards were being handled by the party’s national leadership, which would provide guidelines to branches across SA on how they should be addressed.

The ANC’s Chris Hani regional secretary, Andile Mini, said its RGC had held discussions on the process of nominating councillor candidates.

“Our RGC was to make the branches understand that we are going to local government elections and that there is a process that has been outlined by the national executive committee of starting the bids for nominations, and also to take our members through the guidelines that are there and the criteria to nominate candidates.

“We also looked into which of our branches and voting districts had been affected by this new demarcation of wards, and also to update the general membership on the process leading up to the reconvening of the provincial conference.”

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has dismissed as “reckless” a letter — written a week before the party’s abortive Eastern Cape elective conference — alleging misrepresentation and procedural breaches. Mbalula described the contents of the letter, penned on March 19 by ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi and sent to the party’s top leadership, as a product of “internal political contestation”. The Eastern Cape High Court issued an interim interdict on March 26, preventing the three-day conference, scheduled to take place last weekend, from proceeding. The gathering was later postponed to allow all legal challenges — centring on alleged irregularities in the conference run-up — to unfold in court. Serious allegations were tabled in a manner that treated them as though they were already fact, when many of those allegations had not yet been tested through the internal processes created by the ANC constitution and the revised conference guidelines for that very purpose Ngcukayitobi’s letter caused divisions within the ANC, with the party’s Eastern Cape provincial executive committee distancing itself from it. He was expected to contest for the position of ANC provincial chair against his former ally and premier, Oscar Mabuyane, who had indicated he would seek re-election. Responding to Ngcukayitobi on April 1, Mbalula wrote: “The secretary-general’s office must state plainly that the manner in which your letter was framed, escalated and circulated was reckless in its effect. “Serious allegations were tabled in a manner that treated them as though they were already fact, when many of those allegations had not yet been tested through the internal processes created by the ANC constitution and the revised conference guidelines for that very purpose.” Ngcukayitobi declined to comment on Thursday, saying the secretary-general’s letter did not warrant a response. For the full story visit The Herald

It has emerged that some ANC regional leaders could miss out on mayoral positions as the national leadership rolls out a more stringent process to select the most capable candidates.

The party plans to shift away from practices where regional or provincial leaders often stepped automatically into top local government roles after an election victory.

Instead, it now wants the best people for the job, even if that means looking outside its usual structures.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula had indicated that the party would headhunt capable individuals with proven leadership, management skills and clean records.

Party leaders believe that putting skilled and ethical people in charge of municipalities will help rebuild trust among voters.

The ANC recently introduced tightened rules for candidate selection, a centralised approach aimed at raising standards and reducing the influence of internal lobbying or loyalty-based decisions.

Candidates, especially mayoral candidates, will now go through strict vetting, including criminal record checks, qualification verification and assessments of their track record.

The ANC has also opened the door for public nominations, encouraging South Africans to suggest the names of capable leaders who can serve communities effectively, marking a clear shift from previous local elections.

The party aims to finalise its mayoral candidates by the end of June.

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