Cape Town, South Africa — south african president Cyril Ramaphosa He named a new cabinet on Sunday night after his African National Congress, the former main opposition party, and nine other parties agreed on the composition of a coalition government after weeks of haggling.
Ramaphosa’s party retained the largest proportion of ministerial positions, appointing ANC officials to 20 of the 32 cabinet ministerial positions in the new coalition. But there were six ministers from the Democratic Alliance, once the main opposition and the ANC’s fiercest critic, and Ramaphosa divided the remaining ministerial posts among some of the smaller parties.
Ramaphosa’s announcement of his new multi-party cabinet came a month after the ANC lost its political dominance of 30 years of Africa’s most industrialized country in national elections, forcing it to look for coalition partners. The ANC’s vote share fell to 40% in the May 29 vote and it lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since coming to power at the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994.
The DA obtained the second highest percentage of votes with 21%.
Others have also joined what the ANC called a national unity government open to any of the 18 parties represented in Parliament. Some have refused to participate.
The power-sharing coalition It is unprecedented in South Africa. The country briefly had a coalition government at the end of apartheid, but that was under different circumstances. The ANC won a clear majority after the first multiracial elections, but new President Nelson Mandela invited others into his government in an act of reconciliation.
This time, the ANC needed the help of legislators from the DA and other parties. to re-elect Ramaphosa for a second term.
South Africans abandoned the ANC in historic national elections amid frustration over poverty and some of the highest rates of inequality and unemployment in the world, and Ramaphosa said on Sunday those issues would be priorities for the coalition government.
Although there are 11 parties in the coalition, the ANC and the DA – who were the ruling party and the main opposition for years – are the two largest and most key players. Talks between them have been tense and protracted, with the DA reportedly close to abandoning a power-sharing agreement until a meeting between Ramaphosa and DA leader John Steenhuisen on Friday.
“We have shown that there are no problems that are too difficult or too intractable that they cannot be resolved through dialogue,” Ramaphosa said, noting that the negotiations had been complex.
In some of his cabinet’s most important decisions, Ramaphosa reappointed the ANC’s Paul Mashatile to continue as his deputy president. Ramaphosa also appointed the ANC’s Parks Tau as trade and industry minister, an important portfolio the DA sought and which was at the heart of his task. some of the tensions between the two parties.
DA leader Steenhuisen was appointed agriculture minister, while Ramaphosa also brought the leaders of four other political parties into his cabinet as new ministers.
“We have had to ensure that all parties can participate meaningfully in the national executive,” Ramaphosa said.
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