The IEC deadline for submission of candidates’ party lists was Friday, August 28, 2026 at 17:00 – sharp. ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula failed to meet this deadline. The system captured 2,274 names but never formally submitted.
Why does it look more deliberate than incompetent?
Except for aspirant executive mayors – Andile Lungisa, Frank Chikane and Mondli Gungubele – ANC as a body is not outraged that its presence in power stakes has placed at risk by the party SG, thus making it easy for the DA, a partner in ‘Government of National Unity’? Why would the ANC appear so ill-prepared while the DA is seemingly better prepared, visibly organized, and vociferous?
Scales of preparedness have fortuitously tilted in favour of the DA on account of ANC incompetence. The DA-ANC coalition was long coming to the clairvoyant. When it eventuated after May 2024, it looked like confirmation of a plan solemnized between Mbalula and DA veteran leader, Helen Zille. Strategic posts given to the DA, which in the view of many is an anti-transformation project opponent.
True to form, DA/FF+/Solidarity/AfriForum component of white power retention and white privilege preservation, have not stopped inviting Trump interference against transformation and invasion of the country’s legislative, policy and regulatory sovereignty.
What is happening that ANC keeps giving away the game so easily to its supposed rival? Is this incompetence or deliberate? Is this pattern suggesting a plan or is it a mere coincidence?
When the same “mistake” repeatedly benefits the same partner, at what point do we stop calling it a mistake? Even if it were to be the case that the ANC has decided to put its life to an end, it must appreciate that it exists for more than its paid-up card-carrying members in good standing. It also exists for members that had believed it was a liberation movement for the struggling black majority.
I strongly feel that if the ANC is told or has decided it is time up with liberation – meriting it ending its own life – it still owes more than its members the courtesy of a “suicide note”.
