{"id":107,"date":"2026-09-13T13:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/example.com\/?p=107"},"modified":"2026-09-13T13:05:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T11:05:00","slug":"mbalula-hits-back-anc-candidate-list-fallout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/2026\/09\/13\/mbalula-hits-back-anc-candidate-list-fallout\/","title":{"rendered":"Mbalula hits back as ANC battles candidate-list fallout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Mbalula-Andile-Lungisa-ANC-IEC-2026-elections.jpg\" alt=\"Mbalula hits back as ANC battles candidate-list fallout\" \/><\/p>\n<p>African National Congress secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has pushed back against National Executive Committee member Andile Lungisa&#x27;s decision to challenge his exclusion from the party&#x27;s election candidate list in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>Mbalula suggested Lungisa should have raised concerns directly rather than through lawyers, as the organisation grapples with wider candidate-list turbulence ahead of the November local polls. The ANC is also locked in a dispute with the Electoral Commission over late or missing candidates in some municipalities, with reports that certain mayoral hopefuls were omitted from submitted lists.<\/p>\n<p>The dual controversies \u2014 internal court challenges and IEC friction \u2014 risk further disruption to the party&#x27;s already troubled campaign start, as metros prepare for highly contested ballots.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/elections\/mbalula-andile-lungisa-anc-candidate-list\/\">https:\/\/www.citizen.co.za\/news\/south-africa\/elections\/mbalula-andile-lungisa-anc-candidate-list\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula questions Andile Lungisa&#8217;s court challenge over exclusion from the ANC candidate list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[127,128],"tags":[85],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metropolitanpulse.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}