THE BLAME GAME RETURNS: After The Ballot Bloodbath, ANC Turns On Itself
By Mpho Dube, Editor-in-Chief
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JOHANNESBURG - ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa has dismissed claims that he could resign following his party's bruising performance in the 2026 Local Government Elections.
Ramaphosa has questioned the source of the rumours.
"I do not know where these rumours are coming from; I mean, whoever came up with a rumour like that is preposterous," he said.
Ramaphosa was speaking on the sidelines of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) announcement of the final results on Sunday evening. The ANC has lost its lead in five metros.
uMkhonto weSizwe Party has taken eThekwini, while the Democratic Alliance has eaten into its support in Nelson Mandela Bay, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, and Tshwane.
The former liberation movement has lost its majority in Buffalo City and holds a hair's breadth lead over the DA in Mangaung.
Asked how painful the election outcome was for him, Ramaphosa maintained that the party had accepted the verdict.
"Concerning it might be, we accept that this is how the people of South Africa in our towns, our cities, in our metros have spoken. And this is their verdict. And we accept it with humility."
The ANC has survived losing elections before. What it has never survived easily is the argument that follows.
A week after its worst local government election result since democracy, the party is no longer fighting the DA, the MK Party or the EFF. It is fighting itself over who must carry the blame.
The numbers tell the story of the collapse. Nationally, the ANC fell from 45.59% in 2021 to 30.76% in 2026. The DA followed with 24.64%, while the MK Party secured 9.76%, the EFF received 6.22%, and ActionSA got 5.67%.
The ANC secured outright majorities in 53 municipalities and emerged as the leading party in 128. The DA secured outright majorities in 12 municipalities and led in 32, while the IFP won five municipalities outright and the MK Party secured three.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC dropped from 41.4% to just 20.3%, while Jacob Zuma's MK Party took around 34%.
It was, in the words of ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, a "catastrophic disaster."
But behind the public calls for unity, humility and reflection, a very different conversation was happening at the top.
According to the Sunday Times, President Cyril Ramaphosa was willing to fall on his sword after the results. Sources told the paper that Ramaphosa raised the idea of resigning as ANC president, arguing that under him and the officials, the party had now lost two elections and there needed to be consequences.
One source claimed he went further: if the top seven leadership did not follow him, he would resign alone.
An insider warned that such a move would not stop at Luthuli House. "He can't resign as ANC president and still lead the GNU. It means the GNU collapses. Because, anyway, who supports this arrangement at this moment? How is it assisting us?"
Ramaphosa was reportedly told to calm down, to let the party reflect properly before making decisions, and to consider calling an early ANC elective conference.
Then the scene shifted to the Results Operations Centre. As Ramaphosa arrived at the ROC, with the Ekurhuleni board behind him showing the ANC at 30.7%, the story followed him inside.
Two versions. One party. And a widening trust gap between what is whispered in NEC corridors and what is said to cameras at the ROC.
Then former president Thabo Mbeki entered the fight, and the blame game exploded into the open.
Speaking on the African Renaissance Podcast, hosted by former EFF MP Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, Mbeki said Ramaphosa would be right to resign if reports that he was considering stepping down were true.
He delivered a damning verdict on Ramaphosa's time at the helm of the ANC and the country.
"We are now in 2026. What has happened between 2018 and 2026 of a positive nature, that you can point to, to say during this period, positive, positive, positive, nothing. There's a lot of negativity," Mbeki said.
He questioned what positive developments could be attributed to Ramaphosa's presidency since he became ANC president in 2017 and president of the country in 2018.
"If what is being reported about President Ramaphosa's position is correct, then he is taking a correct position. And maybe the rest of the leadership should take the same position," he said.
Mbeki said the ANC's top seven leaders should consider whether they were still the right people to lead the organisation.
The top seven comprises Ramaphosa, deputy president Paul Mashatile, national chairperson Gwede Mantashe, secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane, second deputy secretary-general Maropene Ramokgopa and treasurer-general Gwen Ramokgopa.
It was the most direct attack yet from an elder of the movement: not just that the ANC lost, but that the leadership has nothing to show for eight years in power.
The Youth League did not let it stand. ANCYL president Collen Malatji hit back at Mbeki during a media briefing at Luthuli House on Tuesday afternoon, accusing him of being part of the problem that caused the ANC's decline.
"But our key statement is that the old guard, including President Thabo Mbeki, are part of the problem that we have in the ANC," Malatji said.
He argued that the party's problems had developed over many years and should not be placed solely on the current national leadership.
"I think it is unfair to want to burden one national collective with a problem that was caused many years ago by the NEC," he said.
Malatji pointed to the arms deal controversy and the involvement of former ANC leaders, including Tony Yengeni, who has since joined the MK Party.
"The first time we dealt with corruption in the arms deal was under them, including comrade Tony Yengeni," he said.
Mbeki served as South Africa's second democratic president from June 1999 until his resignation in September 2008. Yengeni previously served as the ANC's chief whip in the National Assembly and was a member of its National Executive Committee before joining the MK Party in October 2025.
Malatji then turned Mbeki's own question back on him. "He must come and visit the National Executive Committee of the ANC. We engage them at that level," Malatji said. "And he must be able to explain to us that when he was confronted with those issues under his leadership, why did he not resign?"
It was a generational counter-attack: you cannot blame us for a fire you helped start.
Mbalula and deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane moved quickly to shut down any talk of heads rolling. "There's no fall guy," Mbalula said. "A leadership analyses. I know there are people who are overzealous about this thing that the NEC must fall and all of that."
Mbalula has also rejected reports that Ramaphosa is considering stepping down, insisting there is no such discussion within the party.
"There's no such consideration in the ANC," he said.
Mokonyane echoed him: "The ANC will have to first identify what has happened. Our own manifesto and our approach towards these elections were not about individual leaders of the ANC. It was about how we work together with communities."
It is the classic ANC playbook: collective responsibility when the news is bad, no individual accountability until the factions decide otherwise. But Mbalula also admitted something more damaging: the leadership saw it coming. "We are staring at it. The official polls of the ANC told us that we would be at 34%. We knew what we were up against. We put up a fight to push back," he said.
He said the party was even upbeat because it expected to be "totally wiped out." He said the middle class had "turned against the ANC."
In other words, the ANC went into an election it knew it would lose badly, and still has no agreed explanation for why.
Outside the ANC, Julius Malema saw an opening and took it. The EFF leader suggested that if the MK Party demands Ramaphosa must go as a condition for coalition talks, the ANC must agree.
"If the MK party puts the demand that Ramaphosa must go, the ANC must agree that Ramaphosa must go because we are in this mess because of him. You are losing your organisation because you are protecting an individual. He is gone," Malema said.
He framed coalition talks as a moment for the ANC, MK, EFF and SACP to come together and "reject enemy forces."
It is a trap the ANC knows well. Sacrifice Ramaphosa to keep power in municipalities, and risk splitting the party and collapsing the GNU. Protect Ramaphosa, and risk being locked out of coalitions in the very metros it just lost.
Mbalula insists the ANC is in no rush. "We're not in the business of begging for a mayorship," he said. "There is also an option to sit in opposition."
For all the talk about Ramaphosa, Mbeki, Malatji, the top seven, the NEC and early conferences, Malatji himself named the deeper charge.
"Accountability must happen, and the National Executive Committee of the ANC must be accountable for this decline," he said.
He also criticised ANC leaders who, according to him, failed to campaign during the elections, saying those deployed to government and Parliament needed to explain their absence.
"If they are not campaigning for the ANC, it means they are campaigning against the ANC. Those people can't continue being leaders of the African National Congress," he said.
He said the party needed a younger generation to drive its renewal, arguing that the problems could not be resolved by those who had been part of its leadership for years. "It needs a younger generation that will be able to implement that," he said.
He said the ANC had apologised to South Africans who were angry with the party and used their votes to punish it in the elections.
Mbalula echoed that humility. "We cannot ask people to trust us just merely because of our history. It gives us a responsibility to serve, not an entitlement to govern. The ANC must earn the confidence of the people through what it does today and what it delivers tomorrow," he said.
He admitted local governments have failed voters and said residents "have every right to demand better."
Mbalula said the party was preparing a report for the NEC to guide its response to the election results. "We are going to the NEC to get a report which we are working on now, and we characterise it as a doctrine that will guide us to respond to the moment," he said.
He added that the ANC would examine its election campaign and identify the reasons behind its poor performance. That is the blame game the ANC cannot spin away: not who lost the election in Luthuli House, but why taps run dry, lights go off, roads collapse and jobs disappear in the municipalities it still runs.
The ANC still leads the GNU, holds the presidency, and controls the great instruments of the national state, Mbalula reminded South Africans. He promised national government would intervene where municipalities fail and support all 257 municipalities, "not according to how a community voted, but according to the constitution."
But after a result like this, promises sound like the same script. The question now haunting the NEC as it meets to dissect the defeat is not whether the ANC will blame someone. It is whether it will blame the leader, the leadership, the old guard, or itself. And in the ANC, that is always the most dangerous question of all.
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