Breakaway factions will never weaken ANC, says Ramaphosa

CAPE TOWN – African National Congress (ANC) President Cyril Ramaphosa says breakaway factions will never weaken the party. 
 
Delivering the party’s January 8 statement in Khayelitsha on Saturday afternoon, Ramaphosa acknowledged weak branches cost the party at the polls.
 
But he said new political formations, which he did not outrightly name, would never destroy the party. 
 
Reflecting on the party’s poor electoral showing in May 2024, Ramaphosa took a swipe at the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, started by his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. 

The advent of the MK Party cost the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal. 
 
He said while state capture destroyed the ANC from within, the party will survive splinter groups which attempt to poach support from the ANC.
 
“They think they will weaken the ANC. They will never defeat the ANC. Some of these parties masquerade as more radical than the ANC, but their revolutionary sounding rhetoric cannot hide the reality that they have common cause with the forces opposing transformation.”
 
Ramaphosa said the ANC may have lost its majority in government that’s forced it to share power, but it remains in charge.