South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that his African National Congress (ANC) party will seek a government of national unity, which he says would reflect the will of voters and help the country move forward.
Ramaphosa made the announcement on Thursday night following an hour-long meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in Johannesburg, where ANC leaders held talks to try to agree a possible way forward.
The ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in the democratic era, but remains the country’s largest party.
“We agreed to invite political parties to form a government of national unity as the best option to move our country forward,” Ramaphosa told journalists.
“The aim of the government of national unity must be, first and foremost, to address the pressing issues that South Africans want to be addressed.”
He called for “wider unity” among South Africans to solve the country’s problems, including crime, poverty, the high cost of living and corruption.
“This moment also demands multi-party cooperation and collaboration between stakeholders if we are to overcome the serious challenges facing our country,” said Ramaphosa.
He added that the ANC had listened to the people of South Africa and acknowledged their “frustration” expressed during the May 29 elections.
The ancient liberation movement has ruled South Africa since coming to power with Nelson Mandela at the helm in the 1994 elections that marked the end of apartheid. But he was punished for his troubled record in last week’s elections.
Although it remains the largest party, the ANC can no longer govern alone.
“This is a time for sober minds,” ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said on Thursday.
“We are looking at all options,” he told reporters.
South Africa has struggled with slow economic growth, high levels of poverty and unemployment, a persistent racial wealth divide, severe energy shortages and political corruption.
The election result created a complex situation for the ANC, which will have 159 of the 400 seats in the new National Assembly – down from 230 in 2019.
Observers say a coalition could be difficult to achieve, given the radical differences between some groups that should be part of it.
“I can’t… see how this could actually work,” analyst and author Susan Booysen told the AFP news agency. “There is a lot of disagreement and resentment between the different political parties.”
Search for partners
The ANC’s closest rivals are the white-led, pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA), with 87 seats, the populist uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), led by former president Jacob Zuma, with 58, and the Combatants for Economic Freedom, far left. (EFF) with 39.
MK confirmed in a statement on Thursday that “commitments to the [ANC] actually occurred in relation to coalition discussions.”
“A meeting is expected to take place soon where the MK Party will listen to the views presented with an open mind,” he said.
The new parliament must meet within two weeks of declaring Sunday’s results and one of its first acts must be to elect the president.
The constitutional deadline, which will end on or about June 16, is putting pressure on the ANC and others to quickly reach an agreement.
Alternatives to a unity government could include a coalition government or an ANC minority government with the support of key votes from other parties in exchange for political concessions.
“We engage with everyone and are talking to even smaller parties. We want to bring everyone on board,” said Mbalula.
The DA, for its part, signaled on Wednesday that it did not want to join a government that also included the MK or EFF.
Any deal with the DA would be welcomed by financial markets but unpopular with many ANC supporters, who see the party as a defender of what some South Africans call “white monopoly capital”.
Both the EFF and MK are led by former ANC figures who have split and are at odds with the current leadership. Zuma, in particular, openly detests 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 speak to anyone demanding Ramaphosa’s resignation as a condition of joining an alliance.
Zuma was forced to resign as president in 2018 following a series of corruption scandals. He was jailed for contempt of court after refusing to participate in a corruption inquiry, which prevented him from running for parliament.
He remains well-liked in his home province of populous KwaZulu-Natal, where more police were deployed this week to maintain public order.
The province was the scene of deadly riots in 2021 when Zuma was convicted.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
