The ANC has just recorded its worst local government result. On Sunday night the Electoral Commission declared the 4 November elections free and fair and confirmed the ANC on 30.76% of the national vote, with the DA on 24.64% and the MK Party on 9.76% (SAnews). Of 213 councils, 127 are hung.
Within hours of that number settling, the story stopped being about councils and became about Cyril Ramaphosa.
What was reported
On Sunday the Sunday Times reported that Ramaphosa had raised the possibility of resigning as ANC president. According to at least five NEC members quoted in the report, he argued the party could not lose two elections in a row under his leadership “without consequences”, and even said he could resign alone if the top seven officials would not go with him (TimesLIVE). The same report says deputy president Paul Mashatile and second deputy secretary-general Maropene Ramokgopa talked him down, with Ramokgopa floating an early national conference in April instead.
ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu told the paper she was “not aware of such a discussion by national officials”.
What the ANC says
By Sunday afternoon the denials were coming from the top. Chairperson Gwede Mantashe told News24 “there was no discussion like that”. Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula called it “rubbish”. Deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane said the report was “devoid of truth” and that “removing or recalling the president is not an answer” (News24).
Ramaphosa himself, on the sidelines of the results declaration in Midrand, called whoever started the rumour “preposterous” (The South African).
So we have two versions. Five unnamed NEC members say he offered to go. Three named officials say it never happened. Both cannot be fully true, and the public is not in the room.
The part nobody disputes
Strip away the he-said-she-said and one thing stands on the record. The ANC’s own elections head, Mdumiseni Ntuli, said publicly that this is “the second decline under our own leadership” and that the NEC cannot treat it “in the way we’ve been treating all other declines” (News24). That is not a rumour. That is the man who ran the campaign.
And in the same News24 piece, a source close to Ramaphosa makes an argument worth taking seriously: the president does not run municipalities. Regional and branch structures choose councillors, and the party rolled back its post-matric requirement for councillor candidates after pushback. Removing one person, the source says, “is disingenuous because you’re not dealing with the real problem.”
That is a fair point. It is also an admission. If the people picking councillors are the problem, the ANC has known it for years and chose not to fix it before asking for votes again.
Why this matters beyond Luthuli House
This is not just party gossip, because the ANC still leads the national government. One NEC member quoted by TimesLIVE said Ramaphosa resigning as party president would mean the government of national unity “collapses”. Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told News24 the president is “extremely sensitive towards any move that will create instability and governance uncertainty”.
Meanwhile, the clock that actually affects residents is already running. Councils must sit within 14 days of the declaration, which puts the deadline at 22 November (Business Day). Every hour senior ANC leaders spend managing succession talk is an hour not spent on who will run Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay and 124 other hung councils.
What accountability should look like
Voters were clear enough. The question is whether the ANC answers them or just answers the newspapers.
A resignation would be a headline. It would not, by itself, fix a single water pipe in a municipality the ANC still runs. Real accountability would look more like this:
- Publish the review. Mbalula says the party will prepare a report on its performance before the NEC discusses it. Make it public, municipality by municipality.
- Name the councils. Which ANC-run municipalities lost the most support, and who was the mayor? Voters already know. The party should say it out loud.
- Fix candidate selection before 2029. If the problem is who branches put forward, bring back minimum standards and stick to them.
- Negotiate in public. If the ANC enters coalition deals in the next two weeks, the agreements should be published so residents know what was traded.
Ramaphosa may or may not have offered to resign. That is a story for the party. The story for the rest of us is that a governing party lost ground again, and its first instinct was to argue about who leaked what.
Sources opened for this post: SAnews (IEC declaration), TimesLIVE / Sunday Times, News24, The South African, Business Day.