The Johannesburg high court has ordered that a defamation dispute between two of the ANC’s most senior office-holders be settled through oral testimony, a ruling that places the party’s internal handling of money in its elective processes under direct judicial scrutiny. On Friday, Judge Henno Viljoen directed that ANC national executive committee member Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula take the stand to give evidence in the matter.
The judgment also imposes conditions on how the case may proceed. Any witnesses either party wishes to call must first be approved by the court, and each proposed witness must submit an affidavit setting out their evidence in sufficient detail to allow the court to assess the justification for calling them.
Dlamini-Zuma welcomed the order. In a statement, she said she had respectfully submitted that the matter would be better determined by way of oral evidence. She noted that Mbalula had asked the court for an order compelling her to retract and apologise for statements made during an interview on the African Renaissance Podcast, and that the court had made no such order. Instead, she said, it had directed that the central factual question be determined through oral evidence from the parties and witnesses. She committed to cooperating with the court’s processes.
The dispute originates in comments Dlamini-Zuma made during an August interview with the African Renaissance Podcast, in which she accused Mbalula of paying delegates at the ANC’s December 2022 elective conference, at which he was elected secretary-general. She said there was a problem in the ANC whereby leadership outcomes were being decided through the buying of votes, and alleged that Mbalula had openly dished out money to delegates at a clinic to influence the conference’s electoral outcome, adding that it was not a secret. She claimed the money had been used to ensure the election of Mbalula and ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mbalula has denied the allegations outright. “I emphatically deny these allegations as there is no merit to any of them. The respondent cannot point to or provide any shred of evidence regarding these spurious and unfounded allegations,” he said, describing the claims as false and made to defame him.
In her court papers, Dlamini-Zuma disputed that denial and attached an affidavit from a person she said had been present, participated in and benefited from the alleged distribution of money. “I am not alone in knowing that the applicant was engaged in this. There are many people in the ANC who witnessed this, but some of them fear for their lives and are reluctant to come out,” she stated.
She also attached an affidavit from Mandla Themba Sibiya of the Mzala Nxumalo region, who said he had been present when Mbalula distributed money to delegates at the 2022 conference. Sibiya said he had witnessed the distribution and had also benefited financially, and that he was ready to confront the issue of money being used to buy votes at ANC conferences.
Beyond the courtroom, Dlamini-Zuma framed the case as a question of the party’s own renewal. If the ANC was to renew itself, she said, it had to honestly confront the use of money in its internal elective processes. Out of respect for the court, she added, she would not argue the matter further in the public domain. Further coverage of the case is available at https://mg.co.za/politics/2026-10-05-dlamini-zuma-mbalula-set-to-take-stand-over-anc-vote-buying-allegations/