Picture for illustration. Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula arrives by helicopter in Vuwani after protests over the merging of the community into a new municipality have brought daily activity to a standstill, 20 April 2017. Picture: Yeshiel Panchea
The ANC head of the 2019 elections campaign, Fikile Mbalula, tendered his resignation as member of parliament (MP) to ANC parliamentary chief whip Jackson Mthembu, effective as of February 26, 2018.
“The office of the ANC chief whip confirms that former minister of police, comrade Fikile Mbalula, tendered his resignation as an ANC member of parliament in the National Assembly,” Mthembu’s spokesperson, Nonceba Mhlauli, announced.
This was an expected move after Mbalula was axed as police minister in the latest Cabinet reshuffle effected by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“While comrade Mbalula’s departure from Parliament will leave a void, we derive satisfaction from the knowledge that he will continue serving the movement as the ANC’s head of elections towards the 2019 General Elections campaign,” said Nonceba Mhlauli, the ANC caucus spokesperson.
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The former police minister is the second former minister to resign from Parliament after failing to make it to Ramaphosa’s Cabinet.
Former minister Lynne Brown also resigned after the department she headed politically, the state capture-prone department of public enterprises, was handed to former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Mbalula’s deployment to Luthuli House, together with four other NEC members who are chairpersons of task teams, will be on a full-time basis, and he has already started preparing work for the 2019 elections.
His first big task last week was organising the general election workshop. The event stirred controversial media reports when it was alleged Mbalula failed to invite former state president Thabo Mbeki to attend.