Succession fight turns ANC into &#x2018laughing stock&#x2019, Stella Ndabeni tells Eastern Cape leaders

ANC national working committee member and Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni has called for unity in the ANC in the Eastern Cape.

ANC Eastern Cape/Facebook

Provincial chair and Premier Oscar Mabuyane is fighting to retain control against his own provincial secretary,Lulama Ngcukayitobi,in a bitter battle for party leadership.The ANC’s provincial elective conference was stopped by a high court interdict just before it was set to begin in late March 2026,citing unresolved branch disputes and rule violations. The Eastern Cape is one of the ANC’s largest voting bloc,making the outcome critical for shaping the party’s national leadership succession race ahead of the 2027 conference.Amid a bitter succession battle in the Eastern Cape,Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni has begged ANC leaders to unite,cautioning that their divisions are making the party a “laughing stock”.

Her appeal comes amid a bitter dispute that has fractured the party’s highest echelons in the province.

Speaking at the funeral of Msawenkosi Capa – the son of Deputy Agriculture Minister Zoleka Capa – in Flagstaff on Monday,Ndabeni addressed the ANC’s provincial succession battle between former allies,chairperson Oscar Mabuyane and secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi. Ngcukayitobi is challenging Mabuyane for the top post.

Three rank-and-file members,considered Ngcukayitobi’s proxies,successfully interdicted the conference after they were granted an interim order by the Eastern Cape High Court in KuGompo (formerly East London) two weeks ago.

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The court challenge followed a 10-page letter that Ngcukayitobi wrote on 19 March to the ANC’s top seven,complaining about the manipulation of processes in the buildup to the conference.

This is part of a bitter succession dispute,which prompted Ndabeni,a member of the ANC’s national working committee,to remark that when a household faces a succession dispute,outsiders are the ones who stand to benefit.

Ndabeni said:

I’m begging you to stop making us a laughing stock,children of OR Tambo. It’s important to unite. We need to understand that leadership doesn’t come with positions.

“It is the actions that we take ... That at all times the people of the Eastern Cape understand that we mean it when we say we’re for renewal,” she said.

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Ndabeni said renewal means that the ANC needed to change and make a difference in the lives of people.

She added: “Leaders of the ANC must know they don’t rule on their own; they’re not on a farm.”

READ | ANC in the Eastern Cape faces fresh threat to its provincial conference

The latter statement could be seen as a jab at Ngcukayitobi,who is alleged to have spent most of his time on his farm while the provincial executive committee was dealing with the fallout from the legal case at the interdicted conference two weeks ago.

Touching on succession,Ndabeni cited common family disputes over who holds the spear,used for rituals and cultural purposes.

Evoking a quote by the late political activist Charlotte Maxeke,Ndabeni lambasted what she called a “spirit of self’’ in the provincial leadership battle.

“Do not live above your people. Live with them,” Ndabeni said.

“And when we rise,we must make sure that we lift others with us.”