Mbalula lawyer ridicules Dlamini-Zuma bribery claims in court

Defamation Showdown in Johannesburg High Court

A fierce legal battle between African National Congress Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula and party National Executive Committee member Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma played out in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday, 15 September. Mbalula is suing Dlamini-Zuma for defamation after she claimed, during an August interview on Mbuyiseni Ndlozi’s African Renaissance podcast, that Mbalula paid people to vote for him as secretary-general and re-elect President Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president at the party’s 2022 Nasrec conference. Dlamini-Zuma made the allegations during an interview with former EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi on his African Renaissance Podcast on 3 August.

Dlamini-Zuma is present in court, alongside her family and supporters, as the legal showdown gets underway. Mbalula wants the High Court in Johannesburg to order Dlamini-Zuma to retract her statement and formally apologise to him for claiming he bribed ANC delegates. Mbalula has since approached the court seeking an order forcing Dlamini-Zuma, also known as NDZ, to retract the allegations and apologise following her refusal, alongside seeking damages over what he considers defamatory statements. Dlamini-Zuma also claimed that the culture of using money to influence ANC leadership contests stretched back to Ramaphosa’s 2017 campaign, known as CR17, which propelled him to his first term as ANC president and, later, president of South Africa. Dlamini-Zuma had challenged Ramaphosa for the ANC presidency at that year’s conference.

Disputed Evidence and the Sibiya Affidavit

On Tuesday, Dlamini-Zuma’s legal team placed an affidavit by an ANC delegate, Mandla Themba Sibiya, before the court. Sibiya claimed he witnessed Mbalula distributing money to delegates at the conference and that he had also benefited. Dlamini-Zuma’s legal team relies on this account as direct evidence supporting her version of events and as proof that there is a genuine dispute of fact over what happened at Nasrec during the conference. Part of Dlamini-Zuma’s case includes an affidavit from Mandla Themba Sibiya, who was allegedly a delegate who benefited from the alleged bribery.

Representing Mbalula, advocate Smanga Setheni attacked Sibiya’s affidavit. Setheni argued that Dlamini-Zuma could not rely on making broad, unproven allegations in motion proceedings—a legal process decided entirely on written affidavits rather than witness testimony. Because motion proceedings do not allow for cross-examination, courts are generally required to accept the respondent’s version of events unless it is so far-fetched, implausible, or untenable that it can be rejected on paper alone. Setheni argued that Sibiya’s claims fell into that category of baseless assertions and should be thrown out. To make an allegation or sweeping statements about somebody does not afford you protection, Setheni told the court.

Setheni argued that Dlamini-Zuma had failed to provide evidence to support her claim that he bribed his way to the top position. His lawyer, Smanga Setheni, said Dlamini-Zuma’s allegations were unfounded. Our submission is simple: immediately when proof is tendered before this court in the form of a video clip or picture where a delegate is receiving money from Mr Mbalula, then the court must reject that defence outright, Setheni said. Arguing Mbalula’s case, Advocate Smanga Sethene told the court Dlamini-Zuma’s false and injurious statements were both damaging and deliberate. He maintained that there was no credible evidence before the court showing that Mbalula had handed money to delegates at the conference.

The lawyer also placed emphasis on the size of the gathering, arguing that the alleged conduct would have been difficult to conceal given the thousands of people who attended. “The majority of the delegates possessed and carry smartphones equipped with recent technological advanced features, with high-resolution pictures. Yet, not a picture of the alleged incident was captured by anyone. What remains undisputed is that Dr NDZ cannot substantiate her defamatory remarks against Mr Mbalula,” Sethene argued.

The advocate also raised the fact that Sibiya’s affidavit was only deposed on 4 September, a month after Dlamini-Zuma’s interview, and that it was a police affidavit, not a confirmatory one. According to Sethene, Sibiya’s circumstances and the contents of his affidavit raised further questions. He pointed out that Sibiya was unemployed and had not specified how much money he allegedly received. The lawyer argued that the affidavit failed to provide the support Dlamini-Zuma needed for her allegations. He questioned why neither Sibiya nor Dlamini-Zuma had reported the alleged payments to the police or ANC structures. It is also not clear why, to date, the very same Mr Sibiya has not reported this spurious allegation to any police station or any ANC structures locally, provincially and nationally, the same as Dlamini Zuma. Sethene further challenged Dlamini-Zuma’s claim that she had raised concerns about the use of money in the ANC, saying she had provided no evidence to support this. She provides no proof to that effect. She doesn’t even attach copies of the ANC NEC meeting. There’s not even a confirmatory affidavit from any member of the NEC that she raised that issue, he said, adding that Sibiya’s affidavit needed to be examined closely rather than simply accepted as evidence.

Dispute Over ANC Internal Processes

Another issue before the court was Dlamini-Zuma’s contention that Mbalula should not have approached the high court before exhausting internal ANC processes. Sethene rejected that argument, saying Dlamini-Zuma had failed to identify an ANC rule requiring members to pursue internal remedies before instituting defamation proceedings. Our contention is simple: there is nowhere that Dr NDZ cites any ANC policy which makes provision for her breath-taking proposition. The ANC constitution, Sethene argued, did not prevent members from pursuing legal action when they believed they had been defamed.

A defamation battle between ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and former Cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma took a lively turn in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday, with laughter breaking out after an analogy made by Mbalula’s lawyer.

However, Dlamini-Zuma has refused to back down, claiming it was common knowledge within the ANC that Mbalula did not win the conference fair and square. When asked by Eyewitness News whether she would apologise, Dlamini-Zuma confidently said Mbalula knows exactly what he did to win the race to become secretary-general. Do you know who my strongest witness is? It’s his conscience. She said that she’s confident the outcome of the legal challenge will be in her favour, and that Mbalula will have to answer for bribing delegates.