The MEC for Transport and Human Settlement and ANC chairperson Siboniso Duma. Picture: Boitumelo Pakkies/ Independent Newspapers
Durban — Following the disastrous election performance, the ANC chairperson in KwaZulu-Natal, Siboniso Duma, says the party will rope in experts and academics to conduct a post-election assessment.
The once-dominant ANC dramatically plunged from 54% to 18% during the May 29 elections, relegating the party, which has had a tight grip in the province, to the opposition benches.
Reflecting on this during his media engagement with Independent Media editors and reporters, Duma said the party was in “survival mode”.
“We are going to assemble a team of academia and former leaders of the ANC. They are going to give us proper well-researched feedback so that we don’t witch-hunt.”
He added: “We would not want to thumbsuck about the election results because this election was about many different things.”
With the 2026 local government election less than two years away, the ANC is racing against time to hatch a political plan to regain its lost ground.
“We are 17 months before the local government elections. So we must move with speed. In the main, we have agreed that we will not dismantle our election structures,” he said.
During the same engagement, Duma repeated the claims that some ANC leaders in the province “worked” with former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) to topple the ANC from power.
“There are those, not even who collaborated, but who worked for the MKP, and they will be taken out of the system (ANC). Others are still going to be internally (ANC). They are not going to leave the ANC because others are councillors. That is the reality,” said Duma.
If the MKP had won the elections, there would have been an exodus of ANC leaders, defecting the party that raked in 45% votes in KZN, 6% short of garnering the 51+1 outright majority. This resulted in the party taking 37 seats in the KZN provincial legislature with 80 seats.
Nationally, the party managed 14%, translating to 58 seats in the 400-member National Assembly.
While the MKP counted its wins, the ANC was reeling from shock after dropping from 44 seats to 14.
Despite admitting that some leaders worked with the MKP, he stressed that the party would not embark on a witch-hunt to “antagonise” those leaders.
“We are not going to antagonise people unnecessarily. Others are already repenting. The ANC is not going to engage in a witch-hunt. But where there is proof, we will act against those who work with the MKP,” said Duma.
He described the MKP as a façade detached from reality.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula on Tuesday said the party is investigating what led to the loss of support in KZN during the election.
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