Former African National Congress (ANC) president Thabo Mbeki has described the party’s 17% drop in support in the 2024 national elections as a crisis. He was addressing ANC members at the party’s political school in Durban.

The ANC dropped from 54% to 17% in the last general elections.

Mbeki says for now ANC elective conferences should take a back seat to the party’s renewal.

Mbeki adds that during the apartheid struggle, leadership squabbles were non-existent. He says this was because party members had focused on ending oppression.

“Not everything can be solved by a conference. Who are these people who are conferring? So you need to be able to say there’s a process of renewal that has taken place, it has produced this kind of member and this kind of cadre. Let them have a conference. The process of conference first continues to put people in positions of power who should not even be in the ANC.”

WATCH | ANC Former President Thabo Mbeki on KwaZulu-Natal’s poor performance in the 2024 general elections in the country. He says, “you can’t drop from where you were to 17% and continue to say there is no crisis in the province.” pic.twitter.com/Y82YcBhKGy

— SABC News (@SABCNews) September 27, 2025

VIDEO | Thabo Mbeki addresses PTT Political School

KwaZulu-Natal

Mbeki reflects on how frank and far-reaching the day’s discussions behind closed doors went.

“But let’s tell the truth about our province because that’s the only way in which we’re going to find the correct solutions to solve the challenges. I’m very, very glad indeed that this message came quite strongly from the comrades. It’s a statement we are all making. And the statement we are making: we recognise the challenges of the province. We are determined to respond to them. In the process of which, there will re-emerge an ANC that is to the liking of the masses of our people. But more centrally, there will re-emerge an ANC that actually addresses the concerns of the people.”

Mbeki and the convenor of the provincial task team – Jeff Radebe – say the ANC is in crisis after it only received 17 percent of the vote in the province in last year’s general elections.

Radebe says KwaZulu-Natal is important to the ANC – and the country as a whole – because it has the second largest population in the country, as well as the second largest economy.