By Alexander Winning and Wendell Roelf
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa was on edge on Monday as the African National Congress (ANC) announced who it will choose as its partner to govern the nation after losing its majority in elections last week for the first time in 30 years. democracy.
The ANC had won all previous elections since the end of apartheid in 1994 by a wide margin, but this time voters, fed up with unemployment, inequality and the ongoing breakdown of power, received only 40.2% of the vote, down from 57.5. % five years ago.
Its vote share was still the largest of any party, but was not enough for the ANC to govern alone, leaving South Africa in uncharted political territory.
“This moment in our country calls for responsible leadership and constructive engagement,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a weekly newsletter published on Monday.
The ANC’s potential partners are diametrically opposed, ranging from the Democratic Alliance (DA) to uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), parties that advocate nationalizing mines and banks and redistributing of country.
“We would work with anyone who wants to work with us, but not with a hat in hand,” ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said late on Sunday after the official results were announced.
With the future direction of government policy at stake, a working committee of 27 ANC officials was due to meet on Monday to prepare a presentation on the party’s options, to be given to the National Executive Committee on Tuesday.
Under the constitution, the newly elected parliament must convene within two weeks of the results being announced, and its first act must be to elect the country’s next president.
So far, ANC officials who have spoken publicly have sided with Ramaphosa, but he may nevertheless come under pressure, either from an internal challenge or from other parties refusing to work with him.
DIFFICULT TALKS AHEAD
“It will be very difficult coalition negotiations, especially for the ANC because of the internal contradictions,” said Zwelinzima Ndevu, director of the School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University.
He said there would be “tremendous resistance” within the party to the prospect of working with the DA, which came second in the election with 21.8% of the vote. If that proved insurmountable, he said the most likely partners would be the EFF and the Inkatha Freedom Party, which received 9.5% and 3.6% respectively.
The dark horse in the elections was MK, a new party led by former president Jacob Zuma, which received 14.6% of the vote.
Zuma, a divisive figure who remains popular in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, was forced to resign as president in 2018 after a series of scandals and has since become an implacable enemy of Ramaphosa.
“I don’t see anything happening with MK,” Ndevu said.
MK has said it is considering a legal challenge to the election results, despite its strong showing.
Analysts have long feared that Zuma’s party will cause trouble if his supporters reject the results. There were days of rioting and looting when he was arrested for contempt of court in 2021.
In his newsletter, Ramaphosa called on South Africans to stand firm against any attempt to undermine the constitutional order, saying: “There is no place for threats of violence or instability.”
(Additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Nellie Peyton and Tannur Anders; Writing by Estelle Shirbon Editing by Gareth Jones)
