Serious allegations against Fikile Mbalula buying votes

ANC stalwart and former presidential candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said that Fikile Mbalula openly paid money for votes at the ANC’s 2022 National Conference.

She made these allegations during an interview with Mbuyiseni Ndlozi on the African Renaissance Podcast.

Dlamini-Zuma is a prominent politician and anti-apartheid activist who has been a member of the African National Congress (ANC) for decades.

She was born in KwaZulu-Natal, and after finishing school, she obtained her BSc from the University of Zululand and her MBChB from the University of Bristol in the UK.

In the 1970s, she was active in the Black Consciousness Movement and served as the Deputy President of the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO).

She later went into exile, practising medicine while contributing to underground ANC networks abroad.

Since 1994, Dlamini-Zuma has served in the cabinet of every post-apartheid South African president.

She was Minister of Health under President Nelson Mandela, and Minister of Foreign Affairs under Presidents Thabo Mbeki and President Kgalema Motlanthe.

During President Jacob Zuma’s first term, she was Minister of Home Affairs, after which she served as the Chairperson of the African Union Commission.

When President Cyril Ramaphosa took the reins, he appointed her as Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.

She has been a member of the ANC’s National Executive Committee since the early nineties.

She has twice campaigned unsuccessfully for leadership positions in the party. In 2007, she was not elected deputy president.

At the ANC’s National Conference in 2017, she narrowly lost the ANC presidency to Ramaphosa, the current incumbent.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma opens up about vote buying at ANC Conferences

As part of the interview, she discussed the ANC elective conferences, internal party democracy, and candidate selection.

She alleged that during the 2022 ANC Conference at Nasrec, money was openly distributed at a clinic to buy votes for candidates.

She implicated Mbalula, whom she said bought votes to secure his selection as ANC Secretary General and Cyril Ramaphosa’s election as President.

“On the first morning of the 2022 ANC conference, half a billion rand was found in somebody’s room,” she said.

“Money has played a big role in the ANC. Mbalula was handing out money at the clinic. So, money has played a role in the ANC.”

“It was not a secret. Mbalula was dishing out money to be elected as the Secretary General and for the President to be elected.”

She added that, although it is criminal to buy votes at an ANC elective conference, everyone knew it was happening.

“Money was used. We all know. We all saw it. At the ANC’s 2022 National Conference, we all saw it,” Dlamini-Zuma said.

“If you ask anyone who worked at the clinic at the time, they’ll tell you. Even the media reported it. I’m not revealing a secret.”

She said that money plays a big role in the selection of ANC leaders. “That is what I can say,” she told Ndlozi.

She also questioned whether leaders who relied on paying for votes to be elected can be objective in their decision-making.

“I don’t know if you make decisions independently or whether you think about the money you received,” she said.

Statement by Fikile Mbalula

I have noted, with deep regret and with real disappointment, the remarks made by Cde Dr Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma on the African Renaissance Podcast on the evening of 3 August 2026 concerning the use of money at the 54th and 55th National Conferences of our Movement. Her remarks have created a wound so deeply, and it is for that reason that I cannot allow them to stand unanswered.

I Fikile Mbalula, deny these allegations in their entirety. I did not distribute money to delegates, at the facility referred to as the clinic or anywhere else, to procure my own election or the election of any other comrade, at the 55th National Conference, or the 54th National Conference, or at any conference, council or gathering of the African National Congress. Nothing of the sort was done by myself. I reject the allegation, and reject the proposition that the leadership of this Movement was procured with money I distributed.

I was elected at the 55th National Conference at NASREC in December 2022 freely and fairly, by the delegates of the branches voting by secret ballot as Rule 12.3 of our Constitution requires, in a poll prepared, supervised, counted and declared by an Electoral Commission constituted under Rule 14 — a Commission whose membership the National Conference itself endorsed, and to which every province and every one of the four Leagues of the Movement appointed a representative. Not one branch, not one region, not one province and not one League challenged that declaration then, and none has challenged it in the years since.

Where any member holds information about wrongdoing, the doors of this organization are open to them, and the Integrity Commission exists for precisely that purpose. The African National Congress reserves all its rights, and the rights of its Officials and National Executive, fully and without limitation.

I have consulted with my attorneys to seek clarity from Cde Dlamini-Zuma on her very damaging and painful allegations against my person.

My appeal to all comrades and to all South Africans is that we do not permit this to distract us from the work the people have set us: to go to every ward, every street and every home, and to win the local government elections of 4 November 2026.