Fikile April Mbalula

Mashatile and Fikile Mbalula are the frontrunners...

They are the ambitious and vocal Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula who backs up the president and whose job it is to promote unity among the factions and ANC chair and Mining and Petroleum Minister Gwede Mantashe who reached out to the populist MK and EFF parties in a failed bid go bring them into the GNU fold...

Fikile Mbalula ANC Secretary-General is also making the most of the political fluidity positioning himself as negotiator in chief...

ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula acknowledged there were some dissenters on all sides: ‘We have agreed that as political parties we need to gravitate towards the centre except a few who did not expressly support the GNU'...

Both ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula and Deputy Secretary General Nomvula Mokonyane admitted the ANC had been humbled by the electorate but of course was learning the necessary lessons...

ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula – by the nature of his post having to straddle all factions – is a more ambiguous shoot-from-the-hip style of politician who is seen as more populist than not...

But on 29 January the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC) suspended Zuma with secretary-general Fikile Mbalula saying it was to 'protect and preserve' the ANC's 'integrity' in line with its constitution...

ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said that the party was already taking legal action to protect the name of its former military wing which the ANC 'owned'...

Led by ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula party officials have already been trotting out these talking points: accusing politicians who leave the ANC such as Roger Jardine as being in the pay of 'white monopoly capital'...

' The ANC's Secretary-General and de facto Chief Executive Fikile Mbalula also known as 'Mbaks' is benefiting from the uncertainty about the party's direction...