Unity government is the best option for South Africa

South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) will invite other political parties to form a national unity government, its leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, said.

This comes after last week’s elections, in which the ANC lost its majority for the first time since the end of the racist apartheid system 30 years ago.

Ramaphosa called for a national dialogue to help rebuild social cohesion following a “toxic and divisive” election campaign.

Political parties have just over a week to form a government before parliament meets to elect the president.

In South Africa’s proportional representation system, for a government to have a guaranteed majority it would have to be formed by parties that, together, obtained more than 50% of the votes.

The ANC had a 40% turnout, with the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) getting 22%, former president Jacob Zuma’s MK party getting 15% and the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) getting 9%.

Mr Ramaphosa spoke on Thursday after the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) held a marathon meeting in Johannesburg, saying the party acknowledged people’s grievances.

“We agreed to invite political parties to form a government of national unity as the best option to move our country forward,” Ramaphosa said.

His announcement came after days of speculation about the ANC’s options, such as whether to pursue a minority government or a one- or two-party coalition.

In the end, the president invited all of the ANC’s political opponents to participate in talks on co-governing the country.

This is a more flexible arrangement than a coalition, which is a formal agreement between participating parties to work together and usually involves compromises on policies and positions.

A national unity government, on the other hand, would include any party that agreed to a broad set of principles. The idea is that they support the ANC in important votes such as the budget, but maintain their own political and ideological agendas.

Analysts say adopting this broad approach could allow the ANC to avoid choosing a coalition partner that might be unpopular with its base.

This is particularly true for the white LED DA. Its free market agenda makes it the preferred option for the private sector and investors and is seen as an important sign of stability for markets.

But his policies are at odds with the ANC’s social welfare programs and are especially anathema to the party’s left-wing base.

“A national unity government creates the impression that it is a united collective working group,” political analyst Sanusha Naidu told the BBC.

It could also “see how you bring in the DA without necessarily saying we’re working directly with the DA.”

Mr Ramaphosa framed the proposal for a national unity government in the historical precedent of South Africa’s first democracy.

This saw Nelson Mandela of the ANC as president, working with his former enemies in the National Party, which had implemented apartheid.

It also included the Inkatha Freedom Party, a conservative party with an ethnic Zulu base, whose supporters had frequently clashed with ANC activists, causing thousands of deaths.

“By establishing a government of national unity, we will build on an experience with which South Africans are familiar and which has served our country well at a time of great difficulty,” he said.

But the challenges are different.

The ANC is no longer in the majority and the untested hope of three decades ago has been replaced by divisions within the party and starkly different visions of the country among the main parties.

Ramaphosa said negotiators had already held “constructive discussions” with the DA and IFP, as well as the EFF, a breakaway party from the ANC that advocates the seizure of white-owned land and the nationalization of banks and mines.

The DA has said it will not participate in any government that includes the EFF.

But Ramaphosa said ideological and political differences would not “prevent the possibility of working with any party, as long as it is in the public interest” and in accordance with a set of basic principles, such as respect for the constitution and the rule of law, shared values of nation building and social cohesion and a focus on building an inclusive economy.

The ANC’s five-member negotiating team will now meet with a “broad range of parties” to discuss the proposal.

This will include Mr Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party. He refused to accept the election result or join a coalition as long as Ramaphosa remained president.

But MK issued a statement on Thursday night saying it had maintained an initial commitment to the ANC and that a meeting would follow soon.

Ramaphosa has a reputation as a skilled negotiator and is one of the architects of the historic agreement that led to the 1994 elections and the national unity government that followed.

His counterpart at the time, National Party negotiator Roelf Meyer, told South African news channel eNCA that Mr Ramaphosa “has all the capacity to deal with this situation”.

Next week will be one of the biggest tests of these skills.

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