South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been confirmed for a second term by the country’s newly elected parliament.
Ramaphosa received 283 of the 339 votes, as Raymond ZondoThe country’s chief justice said this on Friday evening.
Earlier on Friday, Ramaphosa reached a coalition agreement between his African National Congress (ANC) party and the former opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).
John Steenhuisen, a leading DA politician, said in Cape Town that a “new chapter” was beginning in South Africa after two weeks of intense negotiations.
The declaration to form a government of national unity was signed stating that the coalition, which also includes other parties, is in the interests of all South Africans.
The ANC, the party of former anti-apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela, suffered a major loss of power in the May 29 parliamentary elections.
For the past thirty years, since democracy began in 1994, the ANC had always enjoyed an absolute majority and controlled only the continent’s strongest economy.
The Southern African country of 61 million inhabitants suffers from a struggling economy, mass unemployment, dilapidated state-owned enterprises, regular power outages and high crime and corruption.
Politically and economically, South Africa is considered the ‘gateway to Africa’, a continent that is becoming increasingly important internationally due to the abundance of raw materials needed for the global energy transition away from fossil fuels.
Although South Africa has good relations with Western countries, the government maintains close ties with Russia and China. The country has taken a strong pro-Palestinian position in the Gaza war and has filed a genocide lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
