South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority in the country’s elections this week for the first time since the end of apartheid, in a major setback for the party that led the country’s liberation from white minority rule. .
The ANC, which has led the country since 1994, began closed-door negotiations with other parties to try to form a government coalition – something it had never had to do until now. However, analysts say the party’s losses and the pressure it will face from potential alliance partners have also cast a cloud over the future of the man the ANC hoped would lead it to another term: President Cyril Ramaphosa.
With almost all votes counted, the ANC won around 40 percent of the mandate, followed by the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, with 21 percent. Third is the big success story of the elections: former president Jacob Zuma’s uMKhonto we Sizwe (MK) party, which devastated the ANC’s main electoral base, appears ready to form government in KwaZulu Natal province and may reveal critical in determining whether the ANC will form the next government under Ramaphosa. The MK party won almost 15 percent of the national vote and 45 percent of the vote in KwaZulu Natal, Zuma’s home province.
MK, whose senior leadership – including Zuma himself – is made up of many politicians with roots in the ANC, has already ruled out a deal with the ruling party unless it fires Ramaphosa first. After leading the ANC to its worst-ever electoral performance, Ramaphosa will face intense pressure to step aside, analysts said.
“They lost their majority and lost it badly,” said Richard Calland, Africa director at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. “This represents a very significant defeat.”
The ANC is still the largest political formation in South Africa and it is almost impossible for the next government to be formed without the party, so it will be in a position to lead coalition negotiations, Callard said. “The question is whether Ramaphosa will lead these negotiations or whether he will resign or be deposed at very short notice.”
These issues are magnified by the limited options Ramaphosa and the ANC face as they try to form a coalition that can govern.
Zuma vs Ramaphosa: a bitter story
If the ANC and MK united, they would have a clear majority in parliament. ANC support would also help MK get past the halfway mark in KwaZulu Natal, giving Zuma’s party the opportunity to form a government on its first attempt: the party was only formed at the end of last year.
However, this is easier said than done, according to analysts.
The decline in the ANC’s electoral support comes in a context of deteriorating public infrastructure, social inequalities and increasing crime. South Africa has the highest unemployment in the world at 33 percent, and youth unemployment is 45 percent. Rolling electricity blackouts have crippled the economy.
Ramaphosa and other ANC officials have also faced personal corruption scandals, with the president at one point facing a vote of no confidence over allegations of misconduct.
However, behind the 17 percent drop in the ANC’s vote share since the 2019 elections, when it won 57 percent of the vote, is also the rise of Zuma’s MK.
Although Zuma personally chose Ramaphosa to be his then vice-president, the two have since fallen out. Their complaints date back to 2018, when Zuma was forced by the ANC to resign as party leader and president due to several corruption scandals in which he was involved.
Assuming the role of party leader and president, Ramaphosa set up a commission of inquiry to investigate Zuma and referred to his former boss’s presidency as years of corruption and waste. Zuma, in public statements, responded numerous times to the president and the ANC.
Last December, Zuma supported the new opposition party MK, although he still claimed to be part of the ANC, which led to his suspension. Analysts then predicted that Zuma intended to challenge Ramaphosa and split the ANC vote in this week’s elections, utilizing his loyal support base in KwaZulu Natal. He has now made good on that threat.
“This is ‘unfinished business’ between the two, as President Ramaphosa has said before,” said Sanusha Naidu, an analyst at the Institute for Global Dialogue. “Zuma feels he needs to be vindicated for being accused of corruption. He feels that the institutions are against him. MK does not see the ANC under Ramaphosa as a credible and legitimate organization.”
A difficult coalition
Despite overseeing a sharp decline in the ANC’s fortunes, Ramaphosa has been – at least until recently – the party’s most popular face. In internal ANC polls carried out in March, the politician was considered the most popular of the main party leaders and obtained a higher rating even than the ANC itself. That makes it harder for the party to replace him, analysts said.
A former trade union leader, former protégé of Nelson Mandela and wealthy businessman, Ramaphosa is credited by his supporters for his constant pragmatism and for burnishing South Africa’s image worldwide as a fighter for the oppressed in countries of the “Global South”.
His presidency was especially praised for supporting the Palestinians and for presenting a historic case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice over the war in Gaza. This month, the World Court ruled that Israel halt its military assault on Rafah in southern Gaza – a requirement of international law that Israel has ignored by continuing its attacks on the Palestinian city.
Instead of the MK, a grand coalition with the DA could offer both the ANC and South Africa a more stable governing alliance, analysts said. This won’t be easy. Critics of the DA have accused it of abandoning the interests of the country’s white minority, and the party has been an outspoken critic of the ANC and Ramaphosa. Before the elections, he promised to “rescue South Africa from the ANC” and promised never to form a coalition government with it.
Now, however, he has indicated that he is not closing any options. And analysts say an ANC-DA combination could be the best option for the country right now, uniting the nation and boosting investor confidence in Africa’s most advanced economy.
“The two have profound differences, but they are not insurmountable,” said Ebrahim Fakir, an analyst at the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy. “With this, the ANC has a better chance of stability and of rehabilitating government institutions that have been emptied – even if only in the short term.”
Another option, Fakir added, would be a national unity government, where all parties with more than 10 percent of the vote would be given cabinet portfolios. It is the type of government that Nelson Mandela ran after coming to power in 1994.
Either way, there will be challenges, Fakir warned. “If the ANC opts for the DA or a national unity government, the different parties will try to undermine or show each other off, so both have their dangers,” he said.
Meanwhile, the ANC must consider another factor in its own leadership calculations, said Naidu of the Institute for Global Dialogue: Will removing Ramaphosa from power really help the party recover?
“Even if Ramaphosa is forced to leave or feels he needs to leave, that does not resolve the issue of stabilizing the ANC nor does it resolve the issue of whether the party can put the country before itself,” Naidu said. “This is where we need this level of rationality and pragmatic thinking in the party.
“It’s not just about what happens to Ramaphosa, it’s really about the country, the markets and, most importantly, the people.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
