South Africa's ANC will seek to form government of national unity (updated)

MK Electron

06/06/2024 11:39

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      For first time, ANC needs partners to govern
    

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      ANC won 159 of parliament's 400 seats last week
    

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      No simple options among DA, MK and EFF rivals
    

  
 (Recasts with outcome of ANC leadership meeting; adds Ramaphosa
comments in paragraphs 3-4, 8-9 and 12)
    By Kopano Gumbi and Nellie Peyton
       JOHANNESBURG, June 6 (Reuters) - 
    South Africa's African National Congress will invite other
political parties to form a national unity government, its
leader President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday, after it lost
its majority for the first time in the democratic era.
  
        The former liberation movement once led by Nelson
Mandela has run South Africa since it swept to power in a 1994
election that marked the end of white minority rule. But it was
punished for its chequered record in last week's vote.
    After a day-long meeting of the party's National Executive
Committee in Johannesburg, Ramaphosa said the ANC had decided
that a broad collaboration with other political forces was "the
best option to move our country forward."
        "Political parties should come together to forge a
common future for our country," he told a news briefing. "We
must act with speed to safeguard national unity, peace,
stability, inclusive economic growth, non-racialism and
non-sexism."
  
    Despite its worst ever showing in the May 29 vote, the ANC
remains the country's largest party and will control 159 of the
400 seats in the new National Assembly.
    The election outcome has created a complex situation for
Ramaphosa and his party.
    The ANC's nearest 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 hard-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) with 39.
    "We will not preclude the possibility of working with any
party so 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 a meeting was expected soon.
  
        Africa's most developed economy has been in decline for
the past decade, with sluggish growth, high levels of poverty
and unemployment, crumbling infrastructure and political
corruption.
  
        "The purpose of a government of national unity must be
first and foremost to tackle the pressing issues that South
Africans want to be addressed," Ramaphosa said.
  
    The new parliament has to convene within two weeks of
Sunday's results declaration and one of its first acts must be
to elect the president. 
    The constitutional deadline, which will fall on or near June
16, is putting pressure on the ANC and others to reach an
agreement quickly.
    
    ANC'S DIFFICULT SEARCH FOR PARTNERS
    The DA, for its part, signalled on Wednesday it did not want
to join a government that also included MK or the EFF.
    Any deal with the DA would be welcomed by financial markets
but unpopular with many ANC supporters who regard 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 placards reading "The
DA wants to destroy the ANC" and "Not in our names".
    On the other hand, a deal with the EFF or MK, which advocate
nationalising mines and seizing land without compensation, would
be more popular with some in the ANC base but risks tanking the
economy, analysts say.
    Both the EFF and MK are led by former ANC figures who are at
odds with the current leadership. Zuma in particular openly
loathes Ramaphosa, and his party said after the election that it
would not work with "the ANC of Ramaphosa".
    The ANC said on Wednesday it would not talk to anyone who
demanded Ramaphosa's resignation as a condition of joining an
alliance.
    Zuma was forced to quit as president in 2018 after a series
of corruption scandals. He was jailed for contempt of court
after refusing to participate in an inquiry into corruption, a
decision that barred him for running for parliament.
    He remains well-liked in his home province, populous
KwaZulu-Natal, where extra police have been deployed this week
to maintain public order. 
    The province was the scene of deadly riots in 2021 when Zuma
was sentenced.
   

 (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)
 ((estelle.shirbon@thomsonreuters.com))