WATCH | Mbalula warns ANC faces ‘existential crisis’ ahead of 2026 local elections

Mbalula

Katlehong – African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has warned that the party faces an “existential crisis” ahead of the 2026 local government elections, saying the organisation must earn back voters’ trust after losing its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994.

Speaking at a church gathering in Katlehong, Mbalula said the ANC could no longer rely on its liberation history to secure votes and acknowledged that the party had to demonstrate that it had learnt from its mistakes.

“We are under no illusion about what this moment represents, following the outcomes of the 2024 national and provincial elections,” Mbalula said.

“We go to the 2026 local government elections confronted by an existential crisis.”

Mbalula said the crisis went beyond electoral setbacks and questioned whether the ANC still deserved its position as a moral force in South African politics.

“An existential crisis is not a bad week or a lost by-election. It is a crisis that goes to whether this organisation, founded in 1912, that produced giants like Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Charlotte Maxeke, Nelson Mandela, and that this very church helped shelter and sustain in its darkest years, still deserves to exist as the moral force it was built to be,” he said.

The ANC’s support fell below 50% nationally in the 2024 elections, forcing it to form a Government of National Unity with several parties after decades of governing with an outright majority.

Mbalula said the election result represented a significant break from the ANC’s post-1994 electoral dominance.

“In the 2024 national and provincial election, for the first time since our people first went to the polls in 1994, South Africans did not give us a majority to govern alone,” he said.

He defended the formation of the Government of National Unity, saying the ANC had prioritised political stability over its own interests.

“We turned that outcome into a Government of National Unity with parties we had spent decades standing against, choosing this country’s stability over our own pride,” Mbalula said.

He also delivered a blunt message about the party’s relationship with voters, saying the ANC could no longer expect electoral support simply because of its role in the liberation struggle.

“We are not owed anyone’s vote by history,” he said.

“The grave of a liberation fighter does not entitle their grandchildren to a blank cheque from the grandchildren of those the fighter served.”

Mbalula said rebuilding the ANC’s credibility would require sustained effort.

“Trust, once spent, is earned back one honest act at a time,” he said.

He said the party had embarked on a renewal process and pointed to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s January 8 statement as evidence of the ANC’s commitment to making that renewal visible and irreversible.

“The ANC has learnt from its mistakes and is working through a process of renewal — in this year’s January 8th Statement, President Ramaphosa was emphatic that making it visible and irreversible is one of our key tasks,” Mbalula said.

Using the biblical story of the man at Bethesda, Mbalula said the ANC needed to demonstrate a willingness to change rather than simply seek forgiveness or retain its political position.

“Do we actually want to be made well? I believe the answer is a resounding yes,” he said.

“And since it is yes, then like the man at Bethesda, we must be prepared to do the undignified thing that healing sometimes requires. To pick up our mat, in full view of everyone who has watched us lying there, and to walk differently.”

Mbalula said Katlehong’s history of hardship and rebuilding offered an important lesson for the ANC.

“This community of Katlehong knows something about being broken, and about rebuilding, through the scars it carries from its own painful history,” he said.

“It knows that peace is not the absence of pain but the daily discipline of refusing to let pain have the last word.”

Mbalula urges voters to support ANC

Despite his acknowledgement of the party’s crisis, Mbalula urged registered voters to participate in the local government elections and openly asked them to support the ANC.

He said the election should not be reduced to a contest between political parties but should be treated as an important exercise of democratic responsibility.

“This is the day our democracy asks Katlehong, once again, to speak,” Mbalula said.

“I will ask you to come out and vote and vote for the African National Congress. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.”

However, he also urged voters to hold ANC councillors accountable for service delivery in their wards.

“I am asking you to trust us, once again, and to hold us accountable, ward by ward: whether the power stays on, whether the potholes on your street close and stay closed, whether the streetlight on your corner is finally repaired, whether the clinic has medicine on the shelf, whether the councillor still answers the phone after the ballot is counted and not only before the ballot,” he said.

Mbalula also called on churches to remain independent while working with government to address social problems, including early childhood development, feeding schemes, crime and substance abuse.

“We also need a church that continues to hold family and community together where government’s programmes run out before they reach the last street,” he said.

He said religious organisations should be government partners without becoming politically subordinate.

“A partner without ever becoming a subsidiary, working alongside us on early childhood development, feeding schemes, and keeping young people from crime and substance abuse, while remaining entirely free to rebuke us the next time we fail you,” Mbalula said.

He also warned against voter disengagement driven by political disillusionment.

“Do not let disillusionment with politicians tempt you into withdrawing from your civic duty to vote and to hold government accountable,” he said.

“That is the one outcome that guarantees nothing improves.”

Mbalula said the ANC’s promise of “a better life for all”, first made in 1994, should remain the standard by which its performance is measured.

“A better life for all has been our promise since 1994, and it remains our yardstick for every service delivery intervention,” he said.

Picture: X/@MYANC

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Compiled by Betha Madhomu

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