It seems the African National Congress (ANC) wasn’t happy about Deputy President David Mabuza’s recent utterances about being ready to serve again in the top six (and by extension, the state), as NEC member Fikile Mbalula says he has already been reprimanded for that.

Mbalula was speaking at the St. George’s Hotel in Irene, Centurion on Monday, 11 October, where Mabuza was addressing party disputes ahead of the local government elections, which have been scheduled for 1 November.

With the ANC’s elective conference a little over a year away, it was only a matter of time before someone unofficially opens the succession debate within the ANC.

FIKILE MBALULA ON ANC SUCCESSION TALKS

Fikile Mbalula says David Mabuza and other ANC leaders who want to express their desires to serve in the next cycle should do so after the municipal polls, which are the party’s main focus at the current moment.

“We have called him [Mabuza] to order and everybody involved with that discussion. We will have the whole year to discuss leadership. Everyone who is discussing leadership now, they are really taking us off the rail. We are focused now, we are left with two weeks to victory,” Mbalula said.

Mbalula further said that those opening up the ANC succession debate now is an unnecessary distraction that needs to be addressed, particularly as the party eyes the various municipalities in the current election, including Tshwane, which it lost to the Democratic Alliance (DA).

“We will have enough time for people to state their desires, ambitions and whether they are standing or not standing. It is very wrong for anybody, two weeks into the elections, to raise a non-debate. A political party as big as the ANC cannot be that stupid to discuss things that do not matter. The issue of who becomes the president or becomes what-what is a non-debate now”

ANC NEC member Fikile Mbalula