Mantashe Breaks Rank: ANC Must Never Govern At All Costs — Party Strategy Torn Open

Gwede Mantashe dropped a rare admission into South African political discourse this week, challenging his own party’s hunger for municipal control with language that caught observers off guard. The ANC’s National Chairperson told an internal gathering that chasing governance at any price contradicts the movement’s founding discipline. His remarks, blunt and unambiguous, landed during a period of mounting coalition anxiety across the country’s local government landscape.

Mantashe stated clearly that where the ANC holds minority standing, it must embrace opposition rather than scramble for council seats through compromised alliances. He dismissed two widely circulated justifications for coalition-building: partnering with the DA for the sake of presumed stability, and aligning with black-led parties purely on racial grounds. “I don’t buy that,” he said twice — once for each flawed logic. Neither skin colour nor institutional reputation, he argued, qualifies as sufficient coalition criteria.

ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Vundla had not issued a formal clarification responding to Mantashe’s framing by the time this article went to press. The NEC has not publicly endorsed a uniform coalition framework for the 2026 local government elections. Party structures in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, and the Northern Cape continue operating under divergent arrangements that often contradict each other.

Mantashe’s intervention reflects a deeper frustration inside Luthuli House about undisciplined deal-making at municipal level. Since the 2021 local government elections stripped the ANC of outright majorities in several metros, councillors have entered agreements that embarrassed the organisation nationally. Tshwane, Johannesburg, and Ekurhuleni have all witnessed unstable arrangements that reshuffled leadership multiple times within single terms.

One veteran delegate seated near the front reportedly leaned across to a colleague and whispered something — then nodded slowly as Mantashe finished. No applause followed immediately. The room absorbed his words the way a dry field absorbs unexpected rain: quietly, completely, without rushing.

What remains unanswered is whether Mantashe’s municipality-by-municipality approach will ever be formalised into binding ANC policy before next year’s elections begin reshaping local power. Dozens of councils hang in fragile balance. Communities from Polokwane to Port Elizabeth deserve governments built on principle rather than pure political survival. The question every resident should be asking tonight: who exactly is your ward councillor serving.