Before their court battle, Andile Lungisa warned Mbalula of ‘electoral humiliation’

Less than two weeks before Andile Lungisa filed an urgent application in the Gauteng High Court, he wrote to ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula and the party’s national leadership, warning that Nelson Mandela Bay was “in free fall” – and accusing the party's leadership of overriding branches and communities to remove him as a mayoral candidate for the metro.

In an email sent on 31 August, Lungisa, an ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) member, did not identify who he believed was responsible for removing his name from the party’s candidate list.

But by the time Lungisa approached the court, his allegations had become decidedly more fiery and specific.

In his affidavit, he alleges that Mbalula personally instructed ANC officials at a meeting in Johannesburg to remove his name from the list after it had been approved by the NEC. While he was not at the meeting, Lungisa says he was “confidentially informed” of the instruction by people who were there. And he claimed he had witnesses who would testify to this.

The warning

In his August email, Lungisa made it clear that he regarded the decision as an unexplained political intervention that had overridden the support he said he had received from ANC branches and community organisations.

“I did not manufacture a campaign for the mayoralty of Nelson Mandela Bay out of personal ambition. I responded, despite serious reservations, to approaches from community organisations, civic formations and residents who urged me to make myself available,” Lungisa wrote, saying he had agreed to stand because he did not want to witness the ANC’s “electoral humiliation” in the metro.

Read more

Assault convict Andile Lungisa vows to lead ANC to outright win in Nelson Mandela Bay

July 19, 2026

He said the municipality was in free fall, citing failing electricity and water supplies, sewage running through streets, broken traffic lights, unreliable refuse collection, unemployment and crime.

He warned the ANC that it could not claim that branches were the foundation of the organisation while treating their overwhelming preference for a candidate as “an irritating recommendation”.

The ANC’s list crisis

The fight over Lungisa’s candidacy comes as the ANC battles a wider candidate-list crisis after failing to complete some submissions to the IEC by the 28 August deadline, which the party said was caused by technical problems. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has disputed that.

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

That declaration matters, Lungisa says in his affidavit, because the Municipal Structures Act provides for parties to supplement their lists in certain circumstances after an election.

He says that without a declaration recognising his nomination, his name would not be restored to the ANC’s list and he would lose the basis for arguing that he should be considered first if the party supplements its list.

Mbalula did not respond to questions from Daily Maverick, and has not directly addressed Lungisa’s allegation that he personally ordered the removal.

The Sunday Times reported that a confidential internal report, presented by Mbalula to ANC officials including President Cyril Ramaphosa, blames the wider Eastern Cape list failure on a different official altogether: the Eastern Cape provincial secretary, Lulama Ngcukayitobi.

According to The Sunday Times, Mbalula said Ngcukayitobi “unlawfully and without mandate” altered the province’s candidate list, submitting it to the party’s operations centre just 29 minutes before the IEC deadline.

On Sunday, Ngcukayitobi referred questions about Lungisa’s case to Mbalula.

Speaking to the SABC after Lungisa filed his application, Mbalula said the matter would now be “handled in the courts”, and that Lungisa could have raised his grievance through the ANC’s internal structures instead.

Criminal record

Lungisa’s candidacy was contentious well before Mbalula allegedly entered the picture. When his mayoral bid became public in July, the ANC’s Veterans’ League in the region questioned whether his criminal record should disqualify him, which Lungisa dismissed at the time, saying the matter was “closed”.

Under constitutional and party rules, anyone convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than 12 months in prison without the option of a fine faces a five-year bar from holding public office after serving their sentence. In an August email, Lungisa argued this restriction no longer applied to him: he claimed the ANC’s 2022 national conference had waived the party’s internal rule, and that the constitutional five-year disqualification had expired in May 2025.

Lungisa was convicted of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after striking DA councillor Rano Kayser with a glass jug in 2016. He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and released on parole in December 2020 after serving 2½ months.

The Progressive Youth Alliance, led by the region’s ANC Youth League leadership, nevertheless publicly backed Lungisa in July, citing “the overwhelming support ANC branches and communities have shown” for him.

This is not the first time that Mbalula and Lungisa have crossed swords. In July 2023, Mbalula threatened to charge Lungisa for publicly contradicting the ANC’s position on the Public Protector’s report into the Phala Phala matter.

The ANC has not governed Nelson Mandela Bay outright since 2016, when it lost control of the metro for the first time. Since then, shifting coalitions have taken turns running the municipality, with Lungisa arguing that the instability and deteriorating services had deepened public frustration.

In his email, he argued that the impact of the metro’s decline was not felt equally. Affluent residents could buy generators, water tanks, private security and other alternatives, he wrote, while the predominantly black working class could not “privatise its escape from municipal collapse”.

He also pointed to talk of secession in Kariega, where he said civic formations had discussed breaking away from the metro because of what they regarded as “sustained and callous neglect”.

It was in response to these concerns, he said, that he agreed to stand for mayor – after approaches from community organisations, civic formations and residents, and “overwhelming support” from ANC branches in the region.

“It was within this context that I agreed to undertake what I knew would be a difficult assignment,” Lungisa wrote.

Court application

His account of what happened next forms the basis of his court application. He says his nomination passed through the ANC’s prescribed processes, from branch nominations and regional vetting to the provincial list process, before being confirmed by the NEC.

He says he was interviewed for the mayoral position on 6 August and was subsequently included among the ANC’s shortlisted candidates for Nelson Mandela Bay. On 22 August, he attended a party event billed as the announcement of the metro’s mayoral candidates. The candidates themselves were not announced that day, but Lungisa says he was confirmed as a shortlisted contender.

According to Lungisa, his name was still on the final list approved by the NEC when it met in the days before the IEC’s 28 August deadline for candidate submissions.

He alleges that this changed after Mbalula convened a meeting at a Johannesburg hotel and instructed ANC officials responsible for compiling and submitting the lists to remove his name.

Lungisa says the instruction was given despite the NEC having approved his candidacy and alleges that Mbalula told officials he would cause “problems” for the secretary-general if he were allowed to contest.

He says several ANC members who were present at the meeting witnessed the instruction and are prepared to confirm it in affidavits if Mbalula denies it.

The application is expected to be heard urgently. On Sunday, Lungisa said he was still awaiting a response from Mbalula and expected it on Monday. DM