JOHANNESBURG, Monday 5 October 2026 — ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and senior party member Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will have to testify under oath and face cross-examination after the Gauteng High Court ruled that their dispute over allegations of vote-buying at the ANC’s 2022 national conference cannot be decided on written evidence alone.
Acting Judge Henno Viljoen directed that oral evidence be heard after finding a genuine factual dispute between the two senior African National Congress figures.
The order means Mbalula has not obtained the immediate retraction and apology he sought from Dlamini-Zuma, but the court has also made no finding that her allegations are true.
Instead, the central dispute will now be tested through testimony and cross-examination.
Dispute centres on ANC’s 2022 conference
The case stems from allegations Dlamini-Zuma made during an August interview on the African Renaissance Podcast.
She alleged that money was distributed to delegates during the ANC’s 2022 national elective conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg to influence leadership outcomes.
Dlamini-Zuma specifically accused Mbalula of distributing money to delegates at a clinic during the conference, alleging that the payments were intended to support his election as secretary-general and Cyril Ramaphosa’s re-election as ANC president.
Mbalula has emphatically denied the allegations.
He subsequently approached the High Court seeking declarations that the allegations were false and defamatory, an apology and retraction from Dlamini-Zuma, an interdict preventing their repetition, damages and costs.
Dlamini-Zuma opposed the application and has maintained that her statements should be tested in court.
Witness claims he received money
The court papers include an affidavit from ANC member Mandla Themba Sibiya, who claims he was present during the alleged distribution of money and personally benefited from it.
Sibiya said in his affidavit that he was a delegate at the 2022 conference and was prepared to testify about the alleged use of money.
Mbalula disputes Sibiya’s account and says he does not know him, has never met him and did not give him money.
His lawyers have also challenged details of Sibiya’s version, including the absence of a specific date, time and amount allegedly exchanged.
None of those competing claims has been established as fact.
The court’s decision to order oral evidence is intended to allow the conflicting accounts to be tested under oath.
Court says factual dispute requires testimony
Viljoen found that the factual dispute could not properly be resolved using affidavits alone.
The court identified Mbalula, Dlamini-Zuma and Sibiya as witnesses who could provide evidence relevant to resolving the dispute.
Both senior ANC politicians will therefore be required to make themselves available for cross-examination.
Any additional witnesses either party wishes to call will require the court’s approval.
Applications to call those witnesses must be accompanied by affidavits setting out the evidence they are expected to provide, allowing the court to determine whether their testimony is necessary.
The ruling leaves the underlying allegation unresolved.
Both sides welcome opportunity to give evidence
Dlamini-Zuma welcomed the judgment on Monday, saying the court had not ordered her to retract or apologise.
She said she would cooperate with the court process and would no longer argue the merits of the dispute publicly while the matter remained before the judiciary.
Dlamini-Zuma also said the dispute raised broader questions about the role of money in ANC internal elections and argued that the party would have to confront the issue as part of its organisational renewal.
Mbalula separately welcomed the decision to test the allegations through oral evidence.
He stressed that the judgment did not validate Dlamini-Zuma’s allegations and said he remained confident that evidence presented under oath would support his denial.
The court has made no finding that Mbalula distributed money, bought votes or improperly influenced the ANC’s leadership election.
Court battle exposes wider ANC internal dispute
The litigation comes at a politically sensitive time for the ANC, less than a month before the 4 November local government elections.
Mbalula is responsible for coordinating the party’s national organisation and election campaign as secretary-general, while Dlamini-Zuma remains a member of its National Executive Committee and one of its most prominent senior figures.
The ANC has separately been dealing with internal disputes over municipal candidate selection and the exclusion of 181 candidates from Electoral Commission lists in six municipalities.
That candidate dispute is now before the Constitutional Court.
The Mbalula-Dlamini-Zuma litigation is unrelated to the candidate-list case, but adds another internal dispute involving senior party figures during the final weeks of campaigning.
The next stage of the defamation case will move beyond competing affidavits and require the allegations and denials to be tested through testimony in open court.
A date for the oral evidence will determine when Mbalula, Dlamini-Zuma and approved witnesses are required to take the stand.
