Cape Town, South Africa — Attention in next week’s South African national elections will focus on the fate of the African National Congress party and whether it will lose its parliamentary majority for the first time, as many expect.
Several polls put support for the ANC below 50% ahead of Wednesday’s vote, raising the possibility that it will not be the majority party for the first time since it gained control of the government when Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the first multiracial elections that ended white minority rule in 1994.
But the ANC is still expected to be the largest party.
Here’s how a clear majority would bring unprecedented political change and complicate how the president is elected and how government works in Africa’s most advanced economy:
The most immediate impact if there is no party in a majority would be how the president is elected and whether ANC leader and current president Cyril Ramaphosa is re-elected for a second and final five-year term.
The president is the head of state and has executive powers, but South Africans do not vote directly for the president in a national election, they vote for political parties. These parties obtain seats in Parliament according to their percentage of votes. Lawmakers then elect the president in the first session of the legislature after the election.
Voting occurs in the lower house of Parliament, known as the National Assembly, and at least 201 votes from its 400 lawmakers are needed to elect a president. The ANC has always had a majority in Parliament since 1994, so the president has always been from the ANC.
Without a majority, the ANC would need a coalition or an agreement with another party or parties to achieve Ramaphosa’s re-election. The president could even come from another, smaller party if that’s the deal, although that’s highly unlikely.
The word coalition makes South Africans nervous after a series of them at local government level have had spectacular failures, including in Johannesburg, the largest city and economic center. There, the failure of numerous agreements between parties has caused significant problems in the operation of city services. Other towns and cities have had similar experiences, including the administrative capital, Pretoria.
But a national coalition government of some kind is a real possibility as a result of declining ANC support and would be uncharted waters for South Africa.
While a coalition could be a reflection of the democratic will of the people, some analysts say it could also be detrimental to South Africa’s economy. It increases the chances of government instability and could lead to confusing policy, postponing foreign business investment at a time when South Africa desperately needs it.
There has been no indication of who the ANC might approach as a coalition partner and, for now, all options appear to be on the table. The ANC has maintained during the election campaign that it does not think about coalitions and is focused on retaining its majority.
If the predictions come true and the ANC loses its majority, it could turn directly to the official opposition Democratic Alliance party to form a coalition. It is unclear whether that is feasible, as the DA has been highly critical of the ANC and Ramaphosa, as have the other two main parties.
Instead, the ANC could draw on a number of smaller parties with a small proportion of the vote to form a coalition that would take their combined share to more than 50% and allow the formation of a government.
There are dozens of parties competing in the elections, many of them new and some expected to win only a small percentage of the vote, but they could suddenly have a huge influence on South African politics. Those smaller parties would want something in return, whether it be cabinet positions, some policy input, or even control of entire government departments.
Some South African political commentators have begun to talk about a possible national unity government, in a sort of repeat of what happened just after the apartheid system of white minority rule ended 30 years ago. Mandela then invited other major parties into his government to seek some unity as South Africa took its first uncertain steps as a democracy and set about drafting a new constitution.
It was an act of reconciliation to unite a fractured country, although others have doubted it would work for South Africa now. On the one hand, if all the major political parties were part of the government, who would hold them to account?
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AP News Africa:
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