The fallout from the African National Congress’s failure to submit completed candidate lists for six municipalities to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has triggered a bitter internal dispute.
The ANC’s Eastern Cape provincial secretary, Lulama Ngcukayitobi, has accused the party’s secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, of falsely blaming him for the failure to submit the correct lists for four municipalities in the province.
In a letter seen by The National, a law firm acting for Ngcukayitobi, demanded that Mbalula retract his comments by midday on Tuesday, September 22.
The letter accused Mbalula of making false claims that Ngcukayitobi was the “cause of the widely publicised and embarrassing failure by the ANC to submit all its candidate list in the forthcoming local government elections, with specific reference to municipalities situated in the Eastern Cape”.
The administrative breakdown left the party with incomplete submissions across four Eastern Cape municipalities: Ingquza Hill, Port St Johns, Sundays River Valley, and Walter Sisulu.
In Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, the ANC failed to finalise both its ward and proportional representation (PR) candidate lists, excluding the party from the ballot entirely. In Sundays River Valley and Walter Sisulu, only the PR lists were omitted.
The Electoral Court this week dismissed an ANC application seeking a declaratory order that it had legally and validly submitted its candidates before the 5pm deadline on August 28.
The ANC argued that its candidate information and supporting documents had already been uploaded to the IEC’s system and that this constituted submission, even though the final submission button had not been pressed before the deadline.
The ANC has said it will appeal the judgment. Unless that appeal succeeds, the party is excluded completely from two Eastern Cape municipalities and partially from the ballot in the other municipalities.
The letter from Ngcukayitobi's lawyers said Mbalula had falsely blamed their client for the failure. They alleged that Mbalula had accused Ngcukayitobi of submitting the lists to Luthuli House at about 4.30pm on the closing date, leaving only 30 minutes before the IEC deadline.
The lawyers also alleged that Mbalula had claimed Ngcukayitobi may have altered the list approved by the party’s National Executive Committee.
“In addition to their falsity, the impugned statements are motivated by malice and the desire to shift blame from yourself, where it belongs in that as the administrative head of the ANC, you engaged in a series of conduct which culminated in the failure to submit the lists, over a protracted period of time,” the letter said.
The letter alleged that this conduct included the convening of an illegal provincial elective conference in March and the belated reinstatement of the previous provincial executive committee, just weeks before the IEC deadlines.
The lawyers said that, if no retraction was issued, they would bring an application in the High Court for a declaration that Mbalula had defamed Ngcukayitobi's character.
Mbalula’s office has been approached for comment.