New factions over GNU

ONE WANTS GOVT DISSOLVED, OTHER TO DEEPEN TIES WITH DA

- Eric Mthobeli Naki

There are new factions within the ANC after the general elections held last year. These are the pro- and anti-government of national unity (GNU) groupings, experts say.

New players are driving the new factions, while opposing each other in the heated debate over the composition of the GNU, political analyst Sandile Swana said.

One camp wants the GNU dissolved and the other seeks to deepen the cooperation with the DA in future, rather than go to the left.

The power contest brewing between ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and Gauteng ANC chair and premier Panyaza Lesufi would go full steam towards the 2026 local election and in the run-up to the ANC elective conference in 2027, Swana said.

But Dirk Kotze, a political scientist from the University of SA, was reluctant to describe it as factionalism.

He believed the Mbalula-Lesufi tiff was not necessarily factionalism, but a natural process in which the groups developed automatically due to their support for particular potential candidates in a pending leadership contest.