Coalition likely as ANC obtains well under 50pc

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 By News Agency , Agency

SOUTH Africa was yesterday heading closer to the reality of a national coalition government for the first time as partial election results put the ruling African National Congress well short of a majority.

It was the first time the ruling party had polled under the 50 per cent mark, and in a manner that it needs a formal coalition government with a willing partner.

Observers were projecting a series of complex negotiations to achieve that feat, as partial election results midday on Friday put the ANC in an untenable position to obtain a parliamentary majority.

With more than 65 percent of votes counted across the country's nine provinces, the ANC, with a majority for 30 years since apartheid ended, had received just under 42 percent of the national vote in Wednesday's election.

That represented a huge drop from the 57.5 percent it received in the last national election in 2019, with analysts noting that the precise results could diminish the score ANC holds in the partial results.

The ANC was unavoidably going to be the biggest parliamentary party, but filing by far to obtain the 50 percent mark was unprecedented and a game changer, analysts noted.

Final results are slated to be announced by tomorrow at the most, with the major parties indicating the wish to wait for those final numbers before entering any coalition talks.

The country's focus now was firmly on whom the ANC might approach to jointly govern Africa's most developed economy as it braces with its loss of a majority.

Nomvula Mokonyane, the ANC deputy secretary general, said earlier that the party’s leadership would meet on Friday and “reflect on what is good for the country.”

Observers were frank that it was anyone's guess what the ANC might do, given its lack of plans for any coalition, while there are ‘dozens’ of opposition parties contesting the polls. 

Those seen as foremost are the centrist main opposition Democratic Alliance, the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters and the new ‘Umkhonto we Sizwe’ (MK) Party led by former president Jacob Zuma.

Similarly, President Cyril Ramaphosa as the president is selected by lawmakers as Parliament reconvenes, which implies that the coalition party would then bring enough MPs to provide President Ramaphosa a second term.

Parliament must sit within 14 days of the election results to choose the state president, implying that coalition talks need to be concluded well before that moment.

Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen said he was open to working with the ANC, although he would have to first speak with a group of other smaller parties with which he has a pre-election agreement. 

He said the possibility of the country's biggest political shift in 30 years "opens up a whole new universe for politics in South Africa and to start building something better for the people of South Africa.”

Steenhuisen had said on polling day that all bets are off in this election. “We’re heading into coalition country,” he stated

With votes counted from more than 15,000 of the 23,000 polling stations, the ANC led by some way, as expected. The Democratic Alliance was second on around 23 percent of the vote. Zuma's MK Party had 12 percent and the EFF around nine percent.

Coalition negotiations could depend on how far the ANC falls short of a majority in the final results, with sympathetic analysts projecting the ANC remaining just short of a majority.

That way it could approach several smaller parties to get past 50 percent, but if it is some way off — as it was in the preliminary results — it will have to work with one of those three main opposition parties, who have vastly opposed views on what the country needs.

It was clear that an ANC-EFF or an ANC-MK coalition would spook investors as both leftist parties pledge to nationalize parts of the vast South African private sector.

Inclusion of the business-friendly DA in a coalition government would be welcomed by investors and is eagerly awaited by business monitoring media in the country and in a number of Western capitals.

The ANC has had a clear majority for all of South Africa's democracy since the party swept to power in a 1994 election which officially ended the apartheid system of white minority rule.

Veteran political prisoner Nelson Mandela became the country's first Black president, with the ANC exercising unparalleled dominance, thus slipping below 50 percent after years of infighting and planeloads of corruption investigations, would be a momentous change for South Africa, analysts noted.