In a fresh call, ANC Chairperson Gwede Mantashe has urged NEC member Andile Lungisa to withdraw his High Court case against the party and Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula over his removal from the Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral candidate list.
Mantashe, who was campaigning in Kariega in the Eastern Cape on Wednesday ahead of the November local government elections, said Lungisa’s grievance should be resolved internally and not in the courts.
“I’m here and he is my delegation because he is an NEC member. I’m the one who has the right to ask for him to stop this court nonsense,” Mantashe said.
“I’m the only one who can do that. Others are scared… if they dare shout at him he will also take them to court.”
Mantashe said he had directly confronted Lungisa over the legal challenge.
“I tell him and I say look Lungisa get away from these court issues. ANC issues are solved in ANC meetings and he heard me. He tried to ask me and I said he was too ahead of himself,” he said.
“He went to court on our issues but he is here today and I’m the one who brought him here as part of my delegation because he is an NEC member.”
The intervention comes after Lungisa hauled his own party to the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg last week, challenging his abrupt removal as the ANC’s mayoral candidate for Nelson Mandela Bay.
In urgent papers filed on Friday by his legal representative Makangela Mtungani, Lungisa asks the court to declare his removal from the ANC’s proportional representation list unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.
“The removal of the name of the applicant from the proportional representative listed candidates for ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay is declared to be unconstitutional, unlawful, invalid and of no force or effect,” the papers state.
Lungisa wants the court to direct Mbalula, as custodian of the ANC’s candidate lists and the party’s liaison with the Electoral Commission of South Africa, to reinstate his name.
The ANC and Mbalula were given until Monday to file opposing papers.
Mantashe has now positioned himself as the only senior leader willing to confront Lungisa, arguing that internal discipline has broken down because leaders fear litigation.
“Andile Lungisa is ahead of himself, if he is an ANC person, if he has an issue he will take it up with the organisation, he will not go all over because he is an old member and he must take issues in the ANC, it’s not a court matter,” Mantashe said earlier during his door-to-door campaign.
The court action has exposed a major administrative crisis inside the ANC weeks before the November 4 local government elections.
Lungisa, a long-time Eastern Cape powerbroker and former Nelson Mandela Bay councillor, had been backed by regional branches to lead the ANC’s campaign to reclaim the metro with an outright majority.
His candidacy was seen as central to the ANC’s strategy to wrestle the Bay back from the DA-led coalition.
That plan collapsed last week when a registration blunder left several high-profile ANC officials, including Lungisa, off the PR lists submitted to the IEC.
The error has triggered infighting and legal threats across several provinces, with candidates in other metros also challenging their exclusion.
Mantashe, who is leading the ANC’s election trail in the Eastern Cape, used his visit to Kariega to attempt to stabilise the situation, holding a community meeting after his door-to-door engagements.
He insisted that Lungisa remains part of the ANC despite the court case, saying he deliberately included him in his delegation to demonstrate that party processes, not courts, should decide leadership questions.
Lungisa did not respond to phonecalls and texts, however, the High Court application is still pending, with no date yet set for a hearing.
