---
title: "Mbalula, Dlamini Zuma legal teams clash in court over vote-buying claims"
description: "An ANC delegate who claims he witnessed Fikile Mbalula distributing money to delegates at the 2022 Nasrec conference has emerged at the centre of the legal battle between Fikile Mbalula and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "DEFAMATION CASE"
author: "Lunga Simelane"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/lunga-simelane/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-15-mbalula-dlamini-zuma-legal-teams-clash-in-court-over-vote-buying-claims/"
published: "2026-09-15T22:06:11"
updated: "2026-09-15T22:25:00"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1575
---

# Mbalula, Dlamini Zuma legal teams clash in court over vote-buying claims

> An ANC delegate who claims he witnessed Fikile Mbalula distributing money to delegates at the 2022 Nasrec conference has emerged at the centre of the legal battle between Fikile Mbalula and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.

By Lunga Simelane · Published 16 September 2026, 00:06 SAST · Updated 16 September 2026, 00:25 SAST

## Key points
- Dlamini Zuma alleges money was handed to delegates at the 2022 Nasrec conference to influence ANC leadership, implicating Fikile Mbalula (and referencing Ramaphosa) after a podcast interview.
- Central to her case is an affidavit by delegate Mandla Themba Sibiya claiming he saw Mbalula distribute cash; his account was criticised for lack of detail and its timing.
- Mbalula seeks a court declaration that the allegations are false and defamatory and an order restraining Dlamini Zuma; she argues the dispute requires oral evidence and cross‑examination.
- The court debated whether the matter can be resolved on papers given social‑media circulation and alleged ongoing harm; judgment was reserved.

## Content

A fierce legal battle between ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula and ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) member Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma played out in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday, 15 September.

Mbalula is suing Dlamini Zuma for defamation after she claimed, during an August interview on Mbuyiseni Ndlozi’s African Renaissance podcast, that Mbalula paid people to vote for him as secretary-general and re-elect President Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president at the party’s 2022 Nasrec conference.

Dlamini Zuma also claimed that the culture of using money to influence ANC leadership contests stretched back to Ramaphosa’s 2017 campaign, known as CR17, which propelled him to his first term as ANC president and, later, president of South Africa. Dlamini Zuma had challenged Ramaphosa for the ANC presidency at that year’s conference.

![President Cyril Ramaphosa and newly appointed deputy president Paul Mashatile during a walk-about around stalls within the Nasrec precinct at the ANC's 55th national conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg, South Africa on 20 December 2022. (Photo: Leila Dougan)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/QzdAgai7dpd5cD1K-QLgWCHpizE=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/5ANCCONFday5pix032.jpg)

*President Cyril Ramaphosa at the ANC’s 55th national conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg on 20 December 2022. (Photo: Leila Dougan)*

On Tuesday, Dlamini Zuma’s legal team placed an affidavit by an ANC delegate, Mandla Themba Sibiya, before the court. Sibiya claimed he witnessed Mbalula distributing money to delegates at the conference and that he had also benefited.

Dlamini Zuma’s legal team relies on this account as direct evidence supporting her version of events and as proof that there is a genuine dispute of fact over what happened at Nasrec during the conference.

### ‘I saw everything’

Representing Mbalula, advocate Smanga Setheni attacked Sibiya’s affidavit.

Setheni argued that Dlamini Zuma could not rely on making broad, unproven allegations in motion proceedings – a legal process decided entirely on written affidavits rather than witness testimony.

Because motion proceedings do not allow for cross-examination, courts are generally required to accept the respondent’s version of events unless it is so far-fetched, implausible, or untenable that it can be rejected on paper alone. Setheni argued that Sibiya’s claims fell into that category of baseless assertions and should be thrown out.

![National Investigative Hearing Into The July 2021 Unrest in Durban](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/dxyjiYozvzaSRmkmXP33p-MU9e0=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Lunga-Mbalula-NDZ2_848016.jpg)

*Advocate Smanga Setheni. (Photo: Darren Stewart / Gallo Images)*

“To make an allegation or sweeping statements about somebody does not afford you protection,” Setheni told the court.

The advocate also raised the fact that Sibiya’s affidavit was only deposed on 4 September, a month after Dlamini Zuma’s interview, and that it was a police affidavit, not a confirmatory one.

He questioned why neither Sibiya nor Dlamini Zuma had reported the alleged payments to the police or ANC structures.

“It is also not clear why, to date, the very same Mr Sibiya has not reported this spurious allegation to any police station or any ANC structures locally, provincially and nationally, the same as Dlamini Zuma.”

Setheni further challenged Dlamini Zuma’s claim that she had raised concerns about the use of money in the ANC, saying she had provided no evidence to support this.

“She provides no proof to that effect. She doesn’t even attach copies of the ANC NEC meeting. There’s not even a confirmatory affidavit from any member of the NEC that she raised that issue,” he said.

He added that Sibiya’s affidavit needed to be examined closely rather than simply accepted as evidence creating a genuine dispute of fact.

Sibiya said in his affidavit that he “saw everything”, but Setheni questioned what that actually meant.

“If you saw everything, you have to have an opportunity to detail that which is everything you saw in your affidavit,” he argued. “He has to go to the details of what constitutes everything. What is it that is ‘everything’ that he saw?”

### The origin of the allegations

Setheni also questioned how Sibiya, whom he described as an unemployed person from a rural area in KwaZulu-Natal, came to provide an affidavit supporting Dlamini Zuma’s case.

“We are being told that it is a coincidence,” he said.

He pointed to Dlamini Zuma’s heads of argument, which state that she was not alone in knowing about the alleged payments and that other people in the ANC had witnessed them but were afraid to come forward. The argument states that some of these people had reached out to Dlamini Zuma to express their support and fears.

Setheni questioned why Sibiya, unlike those unnamed people, had been prepared to put his name to the allegation.

“But suddenly we’ve got a very brave Mr Sibiya who says he knows everything, he has seen everything, and yet he doesn’t detail to this court what exactly \[he saw\].”

The court also scrutinised the origin of Sibiya’s affidavit. The presiding judge noted that the statement made no reference to the active legal suit and appeared to have been generated right as court proceedings were formally launched.

Setheni pressed further, questioning how Sibiya came to know about the case and how he had ended up contacting Dlamini Zuma’s attorneys. He pointed out that Sibiya was not being compelled to give evidence and suggested that his account needed to be scrutinised rather than accepted at face value.

### A dispute that needs evidence

Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane SC, representing Dlamini Zuma, argued that Sibiya’s affidavit could not be dismissed simply because it was not sufficiently detailed. Sikhakhane said the affidavit constituted direct evidence from a person who claimed to have been at Nasrec and to have personally witnessed Mbalula distributing money.

He argued that questions about the affidavit’s detail went to its credibility, which could not properly be decided in motion proceedings without allowing the witness to be cross-examined.

“The proverbial horse has bolted,” Sikhakhane said, arguing that the alleged publication had already happened and that the dispute required proper oral evidence.

He said there were three possible outcomes if the court found a genuine dispute of fact: the application could be dismissed, a narrow issue could be referred for oral evidence, or the entire matter could be sent to trial.

His preference was for oral evidence.

“This is a classic unavoidable dispute of fact that requires *viva voce* \[oral\] evidence. Absolutely. And cross-examination,” he submitted.

The judge indicated that Sibiya’s affidavit could not simply be dismissed, although questions remained about whether it contained enough detail.

![Major Law Firms Challenge B-BBEE Legal Sector Codes](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/BRVEnKNo3to1c-05cagKGU2gGGU=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Lunga-Mbalula-NDZ4_379303_850619.jpg)

*Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane SC. (Photo: Deaan Vivier / Gallo Images / Beeld)*

### **The clinic**

Dlamini Zuma had also alleged that the distribution of the money at the conference occurred at a clinic.

“You remember there was money that was found in somebody’s room, half a billion, on the first day of the conference,” she said in her interview on Ndlozi’s podcast. “Mbalula was dishing out money in the clinic. So money has played a role in the ANC. It wasn’t like a secret. Money was used, we all know, and we all saw it.”

She said people working at the clinic would be able to corroborate her claims.

“If you ask anyone who worked at the clinic at the time, they’ll tell you.”

Sibiya’s affidavit did not specifically refer to the clinic. Sikhakhane argued that this distinction should not determine the matter, saying the clinic formed part of the Nasrec conference venue.

He maintained that the issue was whether the alleged distribution of money happened, rather than an argument over the precise room in which it allegedly occurred.

![Security personel at the ANC's 55th national conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg, South Africa on 19 December 2022. (Photo: Emilie Gambade)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/QiS3F9NK0YmWXnSA6eTccrQEqe4=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/JHP04285.jpg)

*Security personnel at the ANC’s 55th national conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg on 19 December 2022. (Photo: Emilie Gambade)*

### The social media problem

A major point of disagreement was also whether Mbalula had continued experiencing harm from the allegations that justified urgent relief. Mbalula’s lawyer, Setheni, argued that the nature of publication had changed fundamentally in the age of social media.

While the statements at issue were made during a podcast, Setheni said they had been replayed by broadcasters, including the SABC and e.tv, and could continue to be shared by members of the public.

“When something is published by YouTube, as is the case with this particular podcast, it was replayed on SABC, it was replayed on e.tv,” he said. “Whoever has shared it, whoever has had it, continues to publish it.”

Setheni argued that requiring Mbalula to pursue each person or platform that subsequently republishes the material would be impractical.

He also argued that Dlamini Zuma’s status meant that an apology or retraction would carry significant weight.

“The person who said this, My Lord, is the most powerful individual on the continent,” he said. “Her apology, her retraction, will send and will be headline news, even on other publications on the continent and I dare say internationally.”

The judge questioned Setheni about the precise purpose of the relief Mbalula was seeking, particularly whether it was intended to stop the podcast’s continued publication or instead to compel Dlamini Zuma to retract the allegations and apologise.

### Will Dlamini Zuma repeat the claims?

The two sides also disagreed over whether there was evidence that Dlamini Zuma intended to repeat the allegations.

Sikhakhane argued that there had been a single interview in August and that there was no evidence Dlamini Zuma had repeated the statements or threatened to do so. He also argued that any further dissemination through the podcast was outside her control.

But Setheni pointed to Dlamini Zuma’s position that she stood by the allegations.

“We stand by them,” he quoted her side as saying.

Setheni argued that this demonstrated that the issue was not simply a once-off interview that had ended.

“That once-off interview has reached lots of people,” he said. “It’s for that reason her retraction will go a long way.”

For Mbalula’s legal team, the continuing availability and circulation of the material online meant the harm could not be treated as having ended with the original interview.

Judgment was reserved. **DM**