By Simon Nare
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has confirmed that some party members were planning to oust President Cyril Ramaphosa at the ANC’s national general council (NGC) scheduled for early next month.
Briefing journalists after the national executive committee (NEC) meeting, Mbalula said Ramaphosa himself raised the matter in his political report over the weekend, revealing that certain individuals were mobilising to remove him.
According to Mbalula, Ramaphosa confronted those calling for his removal and challenged them to specify the date and time he should vacate office.
Mbalula said while the ANC constitution empowers members to remove a sitting president, such a move would require support from two-thirds of party structures, a threshold that has not been met anywhere in the organisation.
Instead, he said, a small group of members was attempting to “digress the party”, and he challenged them to come forward and reveal themselves.
“‘Ramaphosa must step down’ is a ghost. It doesn’t exist,” said Mbalula.
“Yes, it’s a ghost pursued by others, and they believe, in their own imagination, that such a thing will arise. They don’t want Ramaphosa because they were defeated at the conference,” he added.
Mbalula described Ramaphosa as “an asset to the ANC”, saying he had led the party through difficult economic and other challenges in a commendable manner.
Mbalula added that while disagreements were inevitable in a large organisation, they should not be expressed through rumour-mongering or negative campaigning.
He vowed that those pushing to remove Ramaphosa as party and state president would not succeed, stressing that Ramaphosa was elected by ANC branches.
“Ramaphosa was elected by the membership of the ANC, and his term ends in 2027. He is not going to step down because of faceless rumour-mongers,” Mbalula said.
“In the NEC, that matter never arose. No one called on the president to step down. He was simply addressing rumours circulating in the public domain — the same rumours I dealt with here last week.”
Mbalula accused some party members of using the media to spread claims that Ramaphosa would be removed at the NGC and replaced as president of the country.
He said he had already explained that these rumours were being pushed “at random” by people intent on misleading the public.
He warned that these forces were “hard at work”, using the media as a mouthpiece to distort the purpose of the NGC, which he said was meant to allow the party to take stock of its progress since the 2022 national conference.
The NGC, he added, would help the ANC “mop up” and emerge with renewed determination to regain its governing majority.
According to Mbalula, Ramaphosa told the NEC that those mobilising for his removal were “wasting their time” because he was prepared to face any challenge directly.
“The rumour mill claims the president is ready to go. There is nowhere the president is going,” Mbalula said.
“He is doing very well, leading a collective that will account to the general council. The issue of the president stepping down never arose — except among rumour-mongers trying to stir up structures. So far, that has failed, and it will fail.”
Mbalula said the secretary-general’s office remained focused on rebuilding the organisation, a task that required collective effort from members and branches.
He added that the leadership was engaging structures weekly ahead of the NGC, with discussions centred on strategy, tactics, and how to overcome coalition constraints by consolidating the ANC’s majority.
This year’s ANC NGC will be held between 8 and 11 December in the East Rand, Gauteng.
INSIDE POLITICS