By: Natasha Archary

ANC Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula shut down talks that ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa should step down after the party lost its majority in the 2024 National and Provinical elections.
Mbalula addressed media after the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) declared the election results on Sunday, 02 June despite objections from several parties.
After the newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party took a sizeable lead in KwaZulu-Natal, and were allocated 58 seats (27 Regional and 31 National) in Parliament, Mbalula admitted the party’s leader, former President Jacob Zuma was a factor for the ruling party failing to win the elections.
“Zuma was a factor in this election and the same with the formation of uMkhonto weSizwe. We did not talk out of turn about Zuma, we were exposing the untruths in the campaign that he was talking about and also defending our own party and our own organisation.
We never underestimated Zuma, we knew he would get support in Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng.
That is why we put up a fight in relation to him and his party. This is why we mobilised our people and were on the ground particularly in KZN and Gauteng because we knew we were being challenged in these two provinces heavily.
Although Gauteng, we won it, but not convincingly even last time. So our challenge was there, the water crisis in KZN was the biggest and we entered the elections dealing with challenges of loadshedding.
Zuma on his own, because he comes from that province, was a factor in terms of the campaign of the ANC.”
ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula admits Jacob Zuma was a thorn in the ANC’s side in this election
ON COALITIONS: If you come to us with the demand that Ramaphosa must step down as the President of ANC, that is not going to happen.#ElectionResults pic.twitter.com/Q0f3GsAoqH
— ANC SECRETARY GENERAL | Fikile Mbalula (@MbalulaFikile) June 2, 2024
While Mbalula confirmed the ANC will be entering coalition talks, he made it clear that current President Cyril Ramaphosa will not be stepping down.
“Ramaphosa is the President of the ANC, and if you come to us making demands for him to step down forget it. That is not going to happen.
We’ve got no such mandate, we are not going to engage with political parties on the basis of negotiating for so and so and so, we are not going to do that.
As much as we have many reservations about MK Party, we will talk to them if they want to work with us.
But, no political party will dictate terms and conditions to us, that is a no-go area that one.”
Also read: IEC has declared election results despite objections from several parties



