By Kopano Gumbi and Nellie Peyton
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s African National Congress will invite other political parties to form a government of national unity, leader President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday, after losing its majority for the first time in the democratic era.
The former liberation movement, once led by Nelson Mandela, has ruled South Africa since coming to power in the 1994 elections that marked the end of white minority rule. But it was punished for its poor results in last week’s elections.
After a daylong meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee in Johannesburg, Ramaphosa said the ANC had decided that broad cooperation with other political forces was “the best option to move our country forward.”
“Political parties must come together to create a common future for our country,” he said at a press conference. “We must act quickly to ensure national unity, peace, stability, inclusive economic growth, non-racism and non-sexism.”
Despite its worst ever result in the May 29 elections, the ANC remains the country’s largest party and will hold 159 of the 400 seats in the new National Assembly.
The election results have created a complex situation for Ramaphosa and his party.
The ANC’s biggest rivals are the pro-business, white-led Democratic Alliance (DA), with 87 seats; the populist uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) led by former president Jacob Zuma, with 58; and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) with 39.
“We will not rule out the possibility of working with any party as long as it is in the public interest,” Ramaphosa said.
He added that the ANC had already held constructive discussions with the EFF, DA, the smaller Inkatha Freedom Party, National Freedom Party and Patriotic Alliance.
MK confirmed in a statement on Thursday that it had been in contact with the ANC and that a meeting was expected soon.
Africa’s most developed economy has been in decline over the past decade, with slow growth, high levels of poverty and unemployment, crumbling infrastructure and political corruption.
“The purpose of a national unity government must first and foremost be to address the pressing issues that South Africans want addressed,” Ramaphosa said.
The new parliament must convene within two weeks of Sunday’s results being announced and one of its first acts must be the election of the president.
The constitutional deadline, which will fall on or around June 16, puts pressure on the ANC and others to reach an agreement quickly.
ANC’S DIFFICULT SEARCH FOR PARTNERS
The DA, in turn, indicated on Wednesday that it did not want to join a government that also included MK or the EFF.
Any deal with the DA would be welcomed by the financial markets but would be unpopular with many ANC supporters who see it as the party of South Africa’s wealthy white minority.
A group of anti-DA protesters stood outside the hotel where the NEC meeting was taking place, holding signs reading “The DA wants to destroy the ANC” and “Not in our name”.
On the other hand, a deal with the EFF or MK, which advocate nationalizing mines and seizing land without compensation, would be more popular with some in the ANC base, but risks putting pressure on the economy to stand, say analysts.
Both the EFF and the MK are led by former ANC figures who are at odds with the current leadership. Zuma in particular openly hates Ramaphosa, and his party said after the election that it would not work with “Ramaphosa’s ANC”.
The ANC said on Wednesday it would not talk to anyone who demanded Ramaphosa’s resignation as a condition for joining an alliance.
Zuma was forced to resign as president in 2018 after a series of corruption scandals. He was jailed for contempt of court after refusing to take part in a corruption investigation, a decision that prevented him from running for parliament.
He remains popular in his home province, the densely populated KwaZulu-Natal, where extra police were deployed this week to maintain public order.
The province was the scene of deadly riots in 2021 when Zuma was convicted.
(Additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Tannur Anders and Alexander Winning; Writing by Estelle Shirbon and Joe Bavier; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Angus MacSwan and Richard Chang)
