Media Statement

The African National Congress (ANC) held its National Working Committee meeting (NWC) on Monday, 22 June 2026 at Chief Albert Luthuli House, which assessed the state of the organisation, developments in the country and the international environment, as well as the implementation of the 2026 Programme of Action under the theme, “The Year of Decisive Action to Fix Local Government and Transform the Economy.”

With 132 days remaining before South Africans go to the polls on Wednesday, 4 November 2026, the ANC remains firmly on the ground, engaging communities, advancing organisational work and mobilising society around the task of fixing local government, transforming the economy and defending the democratic gains of the people.

A NATION OF WINNERS

The ANC congratulates Bafana Bafana on their historic 1–0 victory over South Korea, secured through the decisive strike of Thapelo Maseko, which has taken South Africa into the next round of the FIFA World Cup for the first time in our history. We wish the team every success as they prepare for their next match against Canada on Sunday, 28 June 2026.

We also congratulate Prudence Sekgodiso, who became the first South African woman to win an indoor world title after claiming gold in the 800 metres at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China. Together, these achievements demonstrate that South Africans continue to compete successfully on the highest international stage.

These victories reflect the enduring character of our nation. South Africans have never been defined by adversity.

The spirit of South Africa is not a spirit that surrenders. It is the spirit Madiba captured when he said: “Do not judge me by my successes, but by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” It is this spirit that has carried our struggle for liberation, sustained our democratic transition and continues to inspire our collective determination to build a better South Africa.

The ANC approaches this decisive electoral period in that same spirit. We have listened to the people, reflected honestly on our shortcomings and undertaken the difficult work of organisational renewal. Our commitment is to become a more effective instrument in the service of the people and to respond with urgency to the challenges confronting our communities.

71ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE FREEDOM CHARTER

Tomorrow, 26 June, marks the seventy-first anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. On that historic day, the people of South Africa declared that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can claim legitimacy unless it is founded on the will of the people. Seventy- one years later, the Freedom Charter remains the moral foundation of our constitutional democracy and the guiding programme of the African National Congress.

Its vision continues to shape our efforts to build a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.

As we commemorate this important anniversary, we reaffirm our determination to defend and advance its values at a time when they are increasingly challenged by division, intolerance and narrow political interests.

MIGRATION, COMMUNITY TENSIONS AND THE THREATS AROUND 30 JUNE

The National Working Committee reflected extensively on the growing tensions around migration, community safety and the threats of instability associated with 30 June. The ANC approaches this matter guided by the Constitution, the Freedom Charter and the rule of law. The ANC rejects the false choice between enforcing immigration laws and upholding human dignity. South Africa is capable of doing both. The democratic State has a responsibility to secure the country’s borders, enforce immigration legislation and protect communities, while ensuring that every person is treated with dignity and in accordance with the law.

The government continues to act decisively, with the Department of Home Affairs reporting more than 110,000 deportations during the current year and the cancellation of approximately 2,000 fraudulently obtained study visas. The South African Police Service and the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration have reported more than 40,000 arrests of undocumented persons, including over 7,400 during the past month alone, while 143 individuals have been arrested for inciting violence against foreign nationals.

The repatriation of undocumented persons continues to be conducted lawfully, safely and humanely. By 20 June, more than 4,900 Malawian nationals had been repatriated from KwaZulu-Natal, with women and children prioritised throughout the process. Hundreds more have been returned through other ports of entry in an orderly and dignified manner. South Africa will continue to uphold the principle that every person must be treated with dignity, irrespective of their immigration status.

Significant progress is also being made to strengthen border security. Through the Border Management Authority (BMA), government is modernising major ports of entry, deploying advanced surveillance technologies and increasing operational capacity along the country’s borders. These interventions are disrupting organised criminal networks, reducing unlawful border crossings and strengthening the authority of the democratic State.

The ANC commends the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) Cluster, led by Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi and all law-enforcement agencies for their work in protecting the sovereignty of the Republic. The enforcement of immigration law is the responsibility of the democratic State and cannot be outsourced to private individuals or unlawful groupings.The ANC addresses these issues politically, because what is unfolding on some of our streets is not, at its heart, about immigration at all. We have seen this architecture before. In July 2021, our country was dragged to the very edge of the abyss by a coordinated assault dressed up as a grievance; an organised attempt to render the country ungovernable and to challenge the authority of the democratic State itself. What we are witnessing now carries the same fingerprints.

Unlawful immigration is being manipulated by new political formations whose real purpose is to manufacture chaos, to collapse the institutions of the State, and to engineer fear and unfair conditions on the very eve of our local government elections.

There are formations in our politics that have embraced an open ethno-nationalism and that have sought to hijack the proud heritage of the amabutho and the sacred symbols of our people’s history, bending them to a reckless and destructive agenda. Let us be unequivocal, the amabutho are heritage institutions that we hold in the deepest admiration and respect; they are the pride of our nation’s history, and they must never be abused or hijacked as a cover for nefarious and criminal acts. The regiments of our forebears were raised to defend the nation and its people, not to terrorise the vulnerable, to loot the trader, or to burn the home of the poor.

In this, we associate ourselves fully with the wise counsel of iSilo, His Majesty the King of the Zulu Nation, who has spoken against the abuse of this sacred heritage and against the violence now being directed at foreign nationals in our communities. To clothe vigilantism and mob violence in the regalia of our heritage is to desecrate it, and the ANC condemns this without reservation.

The ANC states firmly that illegal immigration is unacceptable and the anxieties of South Africans about work, shelter, dignity, safety and access to services are real and legitimate. These concerns must be addressed through lawful enforcement, effective governance and practical measures that protect communities while upholding the dignity of every person.

The burden carried by receiving countries is also real. It must be confronted honestly by the continent as a whole, because this responsibility cannot rest on South Africa’s shoulders alone. This is a continental challenge, and it demands a continental solution. The ANC has tabled concrete proposals in the Continental Compact on Immigration, to be advanced through the African Union. This framework provides for managed, lawful, and humane migration; shared responsibility among countries of origin, transit, and destination; protection for local workers and local economies; and orderly, dignified returns.

At home, the ANC is advancing legislation to protect certain sectors of the economy for South Africans. This includes regulating spaza shops and protecting local economic development. The ANC also rejects, without reservation, the recycled and fabricated images now in circulation that are designed to inflame communities and damage South Africa’s standing on the continent and the world at large.

ON RECENT BY-ELECTIONS AND LGE PREPARATIONS

The African National Congress is running an energetic, disciplined and joyful campaign, in the way the ANC has always won face-to-face, door-to-door, in every street, every ward and every town. ANC volunteers are out in their numbers.

The instructions to structures are firm and are being met. Every region must constantly and consistently reach every ward, ahead of polling day. Volunteer Assemblies are convening across the country, and the spirit on the ground is warm,welcoming and overwhelmingly positive. ANC volunteers are being met with the embrace of communities who know that it is the ANC that brought them democracy, dignity and delivery. These are conversations of hope with neighbours speaking with neighbours about water, jobs and the future of their towns. The reception ANC cadres are receiving on the doorstep gives the movement every confidence going into 4 November.

South Africans are already demonstrating their confidence through the ballot. In recent by-elections in Mpumalanga and

other parts of the country, voters once again placed their trust in the African National Congress. In Bushbuckridge Ward

3, the ANC won decisively across the voting districts of Mbatini, Hoxani and Mapetekwane Overall, we secured a

commanding 1,627 votes to 238.

The ANC does not take the confidence of our people for granted and remains humbled by this trust. The people are the

only true judges of any movement, and through the ballot they are returning their confidence to a renewed, listening

and hard-working ANC. This is the renewal of the movement bearing fruit, not in slogans, but in the considered verdict

of communities themselves.

ANC branch work is well advanced. The overwhelming majority of wards have convened Branch General Meetings and

are completing candidate selection through democratic, branch-driven processes. Where recent ward delimitation

created additional administrative work, provinces are processing the transfers at a pace. This is the largest and most

member-driven candidate-selection exercise of any party in the country, no other formation comes close to the depth

of the ANC’s roots in communities.

The ANC is sharpening its communications and ground campaign for the decisive weeks ahead, with a renewed focus on

reaching young South Africans, who make up the largest share of the voters’ roll, on the platforms where they are. The

ANC is the only organisation with a history, structures, and a programme to fix local government and transform the

economy.

PARLIAMENTARY AND LEGAL MATTERS

The ANC wishes to address a number of legal and parliamentary matters frankly because we believe in transparency and

because much of what has been said about these matters in the public domain remains incomplete.

Following the Constitutional Court order of 8 June 2026, the Section 89 matter has been referred to the relevant

committee of the National Assembly. This is the ordinary constitutional course of Parliament’s business, and it should be

understood as nothing more and nothing less than that.

Let us be very clear about the role of the Speaker of the National Assembly, who stands above this contest. The institution

of the National Assembly must remain neutral, and the Speaker is properly preserving that neutrality by filing a notice to

abide by the Court’s decision. The Speaker has acted correctly, constitutionally, and with complete propriety throughout,

and the ANC stands fully behind both the Office of the Speaker and the person occupying it. Any attempt to draw the

Speaker into the merits of this matter is misplaced, and the ANC will not approve it.

On the question of why ANC members serving on the committee took the view they did regarding the President’s

application, the ANC’s approach is guided by a single principle that Parliament must function skilfully, constitutionally,efficiently, and as one. The ANC is a champion of an undivided, unfragmented Parliament. Our Parliament is built to seek

consensus first and to work from a settled and reliable record.

Some have asked why the ANC first gave notice of its intention to participate in the President’s urgent application and

then withdrew that notice. The explanation is straightforward and procedural. By agreement between all the parties, the

Court issued a case-management directive on 18 June, setting a tight timetable for the urgent application, which is now

set down for hearing on 15 and 16 July. That directive required any party represented in the National Assembly wishing

to intervene or oppose to file its notice by no later than 19 June, a window of barely one day. To preserve our position

within the Court’s timeline, while our posture was still being considered on the advice of senior counsel, a protective

notice was filed in the ordinary course.

Once that considered position was settled, namely that the ANC would come in only as a friend of the Court, confined

strictly to questions of process and sequencing under section 237 of the Constitution, and taking no position whatsoever

on the merits, the earlier notice had served its purpose and was withdrawn. There is nothing untoward in any of this. It

is the ordinary management of litigation, conducted by agreement between the parties and under the Court’s

supervision. We considered being a friend of the Court in order to offer information that we believed the Court ought to

have regarding the operation of the National Assembly in general. We retain the right to participate as a friend of the

Court and may invoke that right at any stage during the proceedings.

The question for the ANC is not who wins a procedural skirmish. The question is whether Parliament does its work

properly. The foundational report on which this process rests is itself the subject of a review before the courts, to be

heard in September.

Our considered view is that it cannot be sound for Parliament to charge ahead with a full inquiry on a foundation that a

competent court may yet set aside, when that very court is seized with assisting Parliament to settle the base record

from which it must work. It is better to allow another competent forum to do its work so that Parliament proceeds once,

properly and on solid ground, rather than twice, and on contested ground.

That is not obstruction or delay; it is respect for the Constitution and for the economy and dignity of Parliament. This

remains the ANC’s consistent position, confined strictly to process and sequencing and taking no position on the merits.

THE RECALL OF THE EXECUTIVE MAYOR IN THE NORTH WEST PROVINCE

The ANC confirms that it is proceeding with the recall of the Executive Mayor of Madibeng in the North West. We have

approached the courts urgently to seek the suspension of the existing order, which prevented the ANC from exercising

its organisational right, and to seek rescission. Deployment to public office is a deployment of the ANC, made in service

of our communities, and the ANC will exercise its right to redeploy its public representatives where it is in the interests

of good governance and service delivery.

THE EASTERN CAPE AND THE CONDUCT OF LITIGATION AGAINST THE ANC

The ANC regards the decision of setting aside the ANC EC Provincial Task Team as unfortunate and, with respect, as itself

unlikely to be sound in law. We say so soberly and responsibly.The ANC has observed a pattern in a section of the Eastern Cape Bench of decisions that appears to hamstring the

constitutional powers of the African National Congress and to intrude upon the right of our members to manage the

affairs of their own organisation. This pattern calls for deep introspection, and we do not rule out the possibility of

escalating our treatment to a formal complaint through the appropriate legal channels.

Consider what is at stake. There are 703 branches in the Eastern Cape. Everyone wishes to proceed to the conference.

Every one of them wishes to be free to run its own affairs and to prepare to win on 4 November. Yet a mere handful of

individuals, not a single ward and not a single branch among our 703, are party to this litigation, yet have been able to

bring the entire body of our membership to a standstill. These complaints were not first brought to the ANC’s own

internal dispute-resolution mechanisms, as our Constitution requires, before they were rushed to court. We therefore

face an extraordinary situation: a conference cannot be held, and when the ANC acts, using its own constitutional tools

to regularise leadership so that a conference can be held, that too becomes the subject of litigation.

This cannot be what our democracy intended. It cannot be right that three persons, squealing from the margins, can

effectively stop a movement of millions from running its own affairs. When the democratic will of 703 branches is held

to ransom by the complaints of a few who declined even to use the remedies provided by their own organisation,

democracy itself is placed in jeopardy.

The ANC will therefore return to court, on an urgent basis, to seek leave to appeal and such further relief as will enable

us to run our own affairs. We will ask that a full Bench correct what we regard as the misguided direction these matters

have taken since March. The regions of the Eastern Cape are united in this, all of them, without exception. Not a single

ward or branch stands with this litigation.

This is not the work of true members of the ANC. No genuine member would labour so hard to damage the organisation

that is their political home merely to be declared a leader of structures that no longer favour them. This is the work of a

small pack of individuals determined to disrupt the ANC’s election preparations. It is political. We cannot say with

certainty where it begins or who funds it, and we will not speculate beyond the evidence. However, the ANC has every

right to ask the question, and we do ask it, in whose interest is it to paralyse the oldest liberation movement on the

continent on the eve of an election? These are questions that warrant the deepest introspection by all who care for our

democracy.

ON GEO-POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT

The ANC remains seized with developments in the international arena that bear directly on the standing of our country and on the cause of justice in the world. We are deeply concerned by the decision of the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court, taken on 9 June 2026, to set aside the unanimous clearance of the Chief Prosecutor, Mr Karim Khan KC, by an independent three-judge panel; a panel that included Justice Leona Theron of our own Constitutional Court; and to record a finding of serious misconduct against him. That this decision was driven by a qualified majority dominated by a narrow bloc of States should trouble all who believe in a fair and impartial system of international justice. The matter now proceeds to a special session of the Assembly of States Parties in New York on 24 July 2026.

The ANC’s position is unambiguous; South Africa must work harder to protect the system of international justice and to rally around the Office of the Prosecutor. We believe our country should not abstain in these forums, for in a contest ofthis kind, abstention is a concession. We have therefore urged our government, through the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, to work across the African continent and the Non-Aligned Movement to defend the integrity of the Court.

On the meeting of the Group of Seven at Évian-les-Bains from 15 to 17 June, to which South Africa was not invited, the ANC is clear-eyed. This is the price of principle, not a wound to be nursed. Our country hosted a successful G20 in November 2025, and we will not apologise for the values we carry into every room we enter. The substantive question arising from that summit, the scramble for critical minerals; only strengthens our resolve: the answer for Africa is beneficiation at home and negotiation as a bloc through SADC, the African Union and the African Continental Free Trade Area. This is the substance of the second radical phase of our National Democratic Revolution.

We also welcome the adoption by the African Union–CARICOM Commission of a nineteen-point plan on reparatory justice in Accra, building on the United Nations resolution of March 2026, which recognised the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity. As President John Mahama reminded us, history does not ask us to inherit guilt, but to inherit responsibility.

The ANC reaffirms the need for even-handed application of South African law to all our nationals. We note the published figures indicating that South African citizens serve in foreign armed forces, including the Israeli military. The law of the Republic applies equally to every citizen, and this principle is consistent with our country’s principled posture before the International Court of Justice.

The ANC also reports that a delegation led by our Secretary General undertook a successful bilateral visit to our sister liberation movement, FRELIMO, in Mozambique from 16 to 19 June. We paid our respects at the Matola Memorial, where twelve of our cadres were murdered by the apartheid regime in 1981. The bonds forged during our struggle endure.

ORGANISATIONAL AND OTHER MATTERS

The NWC also attended to a few further matters in the ordinary course of its work. On the security of members’ personal information, the ANC takes the protection of our members’ data with the utmost seriousness. We acted immediately upon the allegations brought to our attention. Our forensic assessment indicates that this is not a breach of our current membership system. We have nonetheless reported the matter to the Information Regulator in terms of the Protection of Personal Information Act, to the South African Police Service, and to the relevant authorities. We are preparing to communicate directly with affected members.

On the economy, the NWC noted the continued pressure on the cost of living, with inflation increasing in May, driven largely by fuel prices. We welcome the relief expected at the pumps in July, and we reaffirm that fixing local government and transforming the economy, fixing infrastructure, water, roads, electricity, and restoring dignity to our people’s lives, remains the central mission of our movement, led by the ANC.

On safety, the ANC welcomes the latest crime statistics, which show a second consecutive quarter of decline, including a meaningful reduction in the murder rate. This is progress, but we are under no illusion: every life lost to violent crime is one too many, and the work of building safer communities continues.On the matter of our National Spokesperson, Comrade Mahlengi Bhengu, the ANC wishes the Comrade a full recovery and confirms that two Acting Co-Spokespersons, Comrades Nonceba Mhlauli and Zuko Godlimpi, have been deployed to ensure the seamless continuation of the ANC’s communications work. They will soon call NEC sub-committee media engagements so that we can engage more deeply on issues in a focused, subject-specific manner.

CONCLUSION

The African National Congress enters the final stretch of this campaign united, disciplined and confident. We are on the ground. We are with our people. And we are listening. To the people of South Africa, we say: the ANC hears you, the ANC is working, and the ANC asks for your hand once more as we fix local government and transform the economy together.

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