News24 | ANC leaders have ‘checked out of office’, says Soviet Lekganyane

Soviet Lekganyane told the ANC Free State lekgotla that organised resistance to the party’s renewal agenda is coming from within its own ranks, not from external forces.

• Soviet Lekganyane told the ANC Free State lekgotla that organised resistance to the party’s renewal agenda is coming from within its own ranks, not from external forces.
• He questioned why leaders fail to act against wrongdoing, saying some in the party are merely “occupying positions” and have effectively “checked out of office”.
• His remarks come as the ANC grapples with corruption scandals and internal tensions, including allegations involving suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu.

ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Soviet Lekganyane has criticised his party leaders for resisting its own renewal agenda.

Speaking at the party’s provincial lekgotla in the Free State over the weekend, Lekganyane said: “There’s organised resistance to the renewal agenda and this resistance is internal.

“People outside of the ANC, ordinary men and women, are looking at the ANC to be the glorious organisation they know,” he said.

Lekganyane delivered an address on leadership on the first day of the ANC Free State provincial executive committee lekgotla.

His main theme was emphasising principled leadership to strengthen the party and advance its programme of action.

Lekganyane said ordinary South Africans are looking to the ANC for service delivery.

The biggest crises facing the country where the ANC governs include water outages and corruption, among other things.

Lekganyane said: “Why do we sit in a meeting of the ANC and find ourselves unable to take a decision on something that all of us see is wrong? And where do we get the courage to sit in that meeting and defend those wrongdoings?”

READ | ‘Year of renewal’: Ramaphosa promises to rebuild ANC, restore public trust

Lekganyane was the ANC’s provincial leader in Limpopo when some of his comrades were fingered in the R2-billion corruption scandal at VBS Mutual Bank.

Lekganyane, who doubles as the chair of the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating the infiltration of SAPS by drug cartels, said this “courage” shows that some of the party’s leaders “have checked out of office”.

“People are just occupying positions but they’ve literally checked out of office,” he said as he repeated the message.

He said leadership isn’t about elections and appointments, and it doesn’t come as a birthright.

“If you don’t make a choice to lead, you will never be a leader, no matter how many conferences have elected you,” Lekganyane said.

ANC leaders spent most of 2025 branding that year as one of renewal.

In that same year, it was alleged that ANC NEC member Senzo Mchunu, who is now suspended as the police minister, associated himself with a criminal cartel, which is believed to have led to his decision to disband the KwaZulu-Natal SAPS’s political killings task team.

Mchunu’s alleged connections to the criminal underworld were thrust into the spotlight when KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, held a press briefing and accused him of criminality.

Mchunu has appeared before Lekganyane in the ad hoc committee, where the suspended minister sought to explain some of his decisions, which allegedly aided and abetted a criminal enterprise.