LOCAL ELECTIONS 2026: Lungisa’s assault conviction central to ANC’s Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral battle

ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula has finally waded into the increasingly bitter fight over Andile Lungisa’s political future, publicly insisting that the Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral hopeful is not entitled to the position.

Mbalula’s statement on Facebook on Friday came after Lungisa took the ANC and its secretary-general to the Johannesburg Division of the High Court in Gauteng, challenging his exclusion from the party’s proportional representation candidate list. The court has reserved judgment, with a ruling expected on 12 October.

Mbalula’s intervention drew criticism from some ANC supporters on Facebook, with several accusing him of trying to override the will of branches that had backed Lungisa for mayor.

In its reply, the ANC is asking the court to strike Lungisa’s application from the urgent roll or, failing that, dismiss it with costs on an attorney-and-client scale, including the costs of two counsel, one of them senior.

Mbalula said Lungisa was not removed for any personal reason.

“The election committee independently determined cadre Lungisa’s candidacy invalid [due to] adverse findings on his name. The allegation that the secretary-general personally instructed his removal is denied under oath. The secretary-general acted upon an instruction by the election committee, only.”

Mbalula said every candidate had to be subjected to vetting by an agency appointed by the ANC and overseen by the electoral committee.

“Clause 2.10 of the ANC National Executive Committee-approved candidate selection rules makes agreement to vetting of criminal records and qualifications of a candidate a criterion. Clause 2.5 sets a criterion relating to criminal records and charges, subject to its express exception for political offences committed before April 1994.”

Lungisa’s eligibility has been contested since his mayoral bid became public in July. He was convicted of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after striking DA councillor Rano Kayser with a glass jug during a Nelson Mandela Bay council meeting in 2016, and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Lungisa has argued that the constitutional five-year disqualification period had expired after he completed his sentence in 2020.

Expungement

Mbalula said that on 28 August, he wrote to Lungisa, copying in the electoral committee, to inform him that he had not completed the required vetting and biometric fingerprinting. He said this put Lungisa’s candidacy in jeopardy and that the ANC had no official record confirming that his criminal record had been expunged.

Lungisa was also asked to urgently provide official proof of the expungement.

“He relies on branch nomination, a provincial list conference, an invitation to a mayoral interview and a public announcement on 8 September. The rules assess a candidate in stages and place vetting across those stages rather than before them,” said Mbalula.

The ANC secretary-general argued that the court could not order Lungisa’s name to be added to the ANC’s submitted list, because the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act bars parties from supplementing or changing their lists from the close of nominations until the day after the first council meeting following the elections.

Speaking at the weekend, Lungisa said he believed the court had reserved judgment because the ANC could not answer whether it had the authority to remove his name from the PR list.

“They are now reviving the Rano matter because they are being defeated in court; that matter is long dead. It’s not a secret that I’m a member of the NEC because delegates in the last national conference waived the matter so that I could be elected regardless of my previous case. They were defeated in the national conference, and they can’t bring [up] the issue four years later; the five years have long lapsed, they’re all over town, they don’t know what to do.”

Lungisa said Mbalula was further defeated by South Africans in the comments section of the statement posted on Facebook.

Vuyiseka Mboxela , who claims to be an ANC supporter, said they would listen to the judgment and not Mbalula.

“Because you are not the smartest secretary-general, also, please remove the following line ‘ANC fact’; this is our organisation, not a personal entity as you try make it look like your personal spaza shop.”

Another commentator Ntsika Mwalimu called on Mbalula to allow the court process to run its course.

“However, you can come here in Gqeberha, and we’ll show you politically so that Andile Lungisa is our mayor, as the majority of our branches nominated him and the council of churches and business people endorsed him. The Freedom Charter says people shall govern, and as the people of Nelson Mandela Bay, we have spoken; there’s nothing you can do about it, Fikile.”

Kgoshi Kaunda Mashego said on Facebook it was becoming increasingly difficult to defend Mbalula on any platform.

“His soccer boots have no studs left underneath and are very slippery. Hence the own goals that he is scoring day in and day out. Lungisa is the former pioneer of the ANC Youth League and an NEC member; you both could sit with the national chairperson Gwede Mantashe to resolve the differences, but no, public bashing is the order of the day.”

Mbalula wrote to all provincial and regional secretaries on 26 September, following a National Working Committee (NWC) meeting five days earlier, saying that mayoral candidates would be included on the PR list after the elections.

Divisions intensify

Lungisa and incumbent Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Babalwa Lobishe have emerged as the leading contenders for the ANC’s mayoral nomination in Nelson Mandela Bay, intensifying divisions within the party’s regional structures.

“The national working committee sat on Monday, 21 September 2026 and took decisions bearing on the final phase of the campaign and on the constitution of councils after 4 November. This office conveys them for immediate implementation,” wrote Mbalula.

“The municipal troika (mayor, speaker and chief whip) is determined after the results. The national officials shall determine the mayor, the speaker and the chief whip in each of the municipalities under the centralised list only after the election results have been announced.

“Where a small number of nominees were left out of the lists submitted to the Electoral Commission, the curing of those instances shall be managed through augmentation of the proportional representation lists after the first sitting of the councils, on the direction and with the concurrence of the national officials at that time.”

Lungisa filed a high court application against Mbalula and the ANC in September over his removal from the list. 

In his founding affidavit, Lungisa says he is not seeking changes to the list already submitted to the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC). What he wants, he says, is a declaration that his removal was unlawful in terms of ANC guidelines, and that he remains the ANC’s validly nominated number-one candidate for mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay. 

Mantashe tongue-lashing

The letter from Mbalula comes days after ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe visited Nelson Mandela Bay to embark on a campaign trail, where he addressed the Lungisa matter publicly.

Mantashe told reporters that Lungisa had got ahead of himself by taking the ANC to court over a matter that could have been dealt with internally.

“Andile is an NEC (National Executive Committee) member; when I visit this region, he is part of my delegation. I have the right to scold him to say, leave the courts out of ANC matters. I’m the only one who can say this, everyone else is scared of him.

“If they reprimand him, he will take them to court. I told him to leave the courts alone and discuss matters internally because he is ahead of himself. As an ANC person, if he has an issue, he should take it up with the organisation as an old member of the organisation.”

Strong local support for Lungisa

An ANC insider in Nelson Mandela Bay said Lungisa’s influence and support in the region were undeniable, and that his backing among voters would be important to the ANC’s election campaign.

“What Lungisa seeks is confirmation that his name should have been on the PR list, and the question would be, why was he removed in the first place. He is pushing for the conversation to go to the NWC level.

“Now Gwede came to visit and saw his influence and the support he enjoys in the metro. Gwede will be forced to negotiate for him in the NEC so that most votes for who will be mayor of the metro may sway towards him if an amendment to the list is done.” 

“You can’t run away from the fact that Lungisa has become a powerhouse in the metro in a short space of time, and the ANC wants to retain that and not cause a destruction to its campaign machinery.

“They will have to reconsider their position because you can’t deny that Lungisa has single-handedly moved the needle of the campaign, and for once he is talking to the right people in terms of economic development and human settlement development.

“Even if … we win by margins of joining a coalition, the partners would prefer Andile at any given time. The danger is that wherever you go, Andile’s name is at the forefront.” DM