ANC's 114th anniversary rally in KwaZulu-Natal cancelled to prioritise local elections
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has cancelled its 114th birthday celebrations.
Image: Matthews Baloyi / Independent Newspapers
For the second time, the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has cancelled the provincial celebration of its January 8 rally, which was intended to commemorate the party's 114th anniversary.
The event was scheduled to take place this weekend in Durban and was to be addressed by party President Cyril Ramaphosa.
However, in a short statement by the provincial leadership on Tuesday, it said the party has decided to cancel in order to focus on preparing branches for the local government elections.
"The ANC has decided to cancel its 114th anniversary celebrations rally, which was planned for the 28th March 2026 in Durban due to sensitive and strategic organisational work related to preparing the structures ahead of the upcoming local government elections," read the statement.
The party's decision stems from the IEC's announcement that voter registration will occur over the weekend of June 20th to 21st, 2026.
Instead, the party said it will use this weekend to prepare its branches to play a meaningful role in mobilising its members and re-energise its supporters to register ahead of the local government elections.
The event was cancelled for the second time. It was initially scheduled for three weeks ago; however, it was postponed to this weekend to allow Ramaphosa to attend the funeral of American human and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.
The cancellation comes amid speculations that the ANC national leadership has also decided to cancel the regional and provincial conferences in order to start the councillor candidate nomination process.
Despite the roadmap's requirement for all 11 KwaZulu-Natal regions to hold their conferences by April 7 to enable the provincial conference to occur at the end of April, no regional conferences are currently confirmed for this week or next week due to a shortage of active branches.
The party's division has deepened due to the task teams' failure to prepare branches for conferences.
Factions aiming to win the conferences are now accusing the task teams of intentionally delaying the processes to retain influence over the appointment of mayors. The task teams have denied these allegations, which suggest they are clinging to power.