ANC Eastern Cape Secretary Threatens Fikile Mbalula With Defamation Lawsuit Over Candidate List Blame
Internal tensions within the African National Congress (ANC) have escalated into a legal battle, as Eastern Cape Provincial Secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi threatens defamation action against the party’s Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula.
A formal letter from Mabuza Attorneys, dated September 17, 2026, accuses Mbalula of fabricating and circulating a damaging report that holds Ngcukayitobi personally responsible for the party’s recent local election mishaps.
The legal dispute stems from major news reports published between September 13 and 14, including a front-page story in the Sunday Times titled “ANC’s ‘mea culpa’ on election candidates.”
According to Ngcukayitobi’s legal team, Mbalula authored and distributed an internal report framing the Eastern Cape leadership for the party’s “embarrassing failure” to submit candidate lists to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) before the official deadline.
Ngcukayitobi’s lawyers state that the allegations are entirely false and have severely damaged their client’s integrity, standing, and political reputation.
The letter explicitly rejects the narrative that the Eastern Cape provincial office failed to submit its candidate rosters timeously to the Secretary General’s office.
The ANC top leadership has not yet released an official statement regarding the legal threat, which marks a significant public fracture ahead of the upcoming local government elections.
The legal notice demands a full, unconditional, and mutually agreed retraction of statements that allegedly paint the unnamed client as negligent or responsible for altering approved lists.
According to the leaked document, the dispute centers on internal claims that the client missed crucial submission deadlines on August 28, 2016, and unilaterally modified lists approved by the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC).
The client’s legal team has fiercely rejected these claims as “false, defamatory, and/or intended to carry a defamatory innuendon.
In a stunning counter-accusation, the legal letter claims that the administrative head personally ordered alterations to the candidate roster.
Crucially, the document references the direct instruction to remove high-profile politician Andile Lungisa from the Proportional Representation List of Nelson Mandela Bay.
The client maintains that they played no part in altering any lists and argues that the allegations against them are a malicious attempt to deflect institutional blame.
The legal notice goes a step further, accusing the administrative head of engaging in systematic, destructive conduct over a protracted period.
The grievances list a series of controversial interventions, including:Convening an illegal provincial conference in March 2026.and sidelining the duly elected Provincial Executive Committee and the Provincial Secretary until just weeks before the critical IEC deadline.
The document asserts that these maneuvers directly compromised the party’s administrative stability and ultimately caused the failure to submit candidate lists properly.
With the internal political climate souring, the client’s legal representatives have issued a strict ultimatum demanding an absolute retraction of the published statements.
Failure to comply will result in an immediate application to the high court for a formal declaration of character defamation.
As the deadline passes, the ANC’s leadership faces immense pressure to resolve this explosive internal dispute before it risks playing out entirely in the public courts.
The statement further gave Mbalula until Tuesday, 22 September 2026 to retract his lies, failing which court proceedings will indeed be instituted in the appropriate Division of the High Court without any further notice to him than this one.
Lastly it said as it has become characteristic of Mbalula in public engagements on ANC matters, the letter said our client is concerned that upon receipt of this letter he will make uncouth public pronouncements about this matter, and urges him to refrain from doing so, and expressly warns that should he resort to such antics, that will be regarded as aggravation of the defamation and will be reflected in the anticipated court proceedings as such.
