Local Government Elections 2026: ANC election-list war heats up as Eastern Cape secretary threatens to sue Fikile Mbalula

Eastern Cape ANC secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi is threatening legal action against Fikile Mbalula, accusing the secretary-general of falsely blaming him for the party’s candidate-list failures.

The fallout from the ANC’s candidate-list blunder has escalated into a clash between the party’s secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, and its Eastern Cape secretary, Lulama Ngcukayitobi, who is threatening to sue Mbalula for defamation for claiming that he was responsible for the province’s failure to submit its lists on time.

Ngcukayitobi’s lawyers have given Mbalula until 12 midday on Tuesday, 22 September to retract what they describe as “falsehoods” about the provincial secretary’s alleged role in the ANC’s candidate-list debacle.

The demand follows a report by Mbalula that was presented to ANC officials, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, in which Mbalula reportedly attributed the Eastern Cape’s candidate-list problems to the provincial leadership, and specifically Ngcukayitobi.

According to the report, as cited in the Sunday Times, Ngcukayitobi allegedly submitted the province’s final candidate list to the ANC’s operations centre at 4.31pm on 28 August, just 29 minutes before the IEC’s 5pm deadline.

Mbalula reportedly argued that the short window left the ANC’s data centre with insufficient time to process the provincial list, check it against information already held, capture changes and submit the affected municipal lists to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).

The report says the Eastern Cape’s workbook recorded its last save at 2.31pm on 28 August, two hours before the file reached the data centre and two hours and 29 minutes before the deadline, while 35 identity-number corrections had already consumed more than four hours.

It is for that reason Mbalula believes that the Eastern Cape’s blunder had nothing to do with the IEC’s systems but rather reflected an internal ANC failure in which the province “left itself no margin”.

Ngcukayitobi’s lawyers, however, have rejected that account and accused Mbalula of attempting to shift responsibility for the wider candidate-list crisis.

In a letter seen by Daily Maverick, Mabuza Attorneys, acting for Ngcukayitobi, said the ANC provincial secretary had been defamed by statements attributed to Mbalula in that report and subsequent media coverage.

The lawyers said the report falsely claimed that Ngcukayitobi was responsible for the Eastern Cape ANC’s failure to submit its candidate lists timeously.

They further disputed an implication that Ngcukayitobi had altered a candidate list that had already been approved by the ANC’s National Executive Committee.

“To your knowledge, the claims you made are false, defamatory and/or intended to carry a defamatory innuendo,” the lawyers wrote.

The letter says Ngcukayitobi was only aware of one instance in which Mbalula personally instructed that a list be altered, which included the removal of Andile Lungisa’s name from the proportional representation list for Nelson Mandela Bay.