ANC members will fund the party’s election campaign, says the ANC’s head of elections Fikile Mbalula, as the party struggles to pay staff salaries.
He was responding to questions from the media about how much his party had budgeted for the upcoming local government elections.
Journalists also asked him about the lack of ANC election posters which bore the faces of ward candidates while other parties such as the EFF and DA had put their posters up.
In his reply, Mbalula said the ANC did not, for now, have a budget for that. They were dependent on donations from their members and other donors.
“I do not have an election budget. We are going to depend on the agility and commitment of our members. We’ve always had it that way. We do not have a billion. Comrade TG (treasurer-general Paul Mashatile) is fund-raising for us.
“With the little we’ve got, we will be able to deliver a decisive and majority victory.”
Mbalula said his party had never had an elections budget, adding that its own members were responsible for the funding.
He was answering questions in the wake of the ANC struggling to pay salaries to its workers but he appeared confident that the funds to drive their election campaign would emerge.
Mbalula said the ANC would reclaim Tshwane and fight to regain control of the City of Joburg and Ekurhuleni.
While he emphasised that the ANC was gunning for a majority victory in all municipalities, he did not rule out the possibility of coalition governments where they failed to obtain a majority.
“Coalitions have not worked. We are gunning for a decisive and majority victory. If coalition governments have to happen, it will reflect the will of the voters,” Mbalula said.
Political Bureau