The African National Congress (ANC) party lost its parliamentary majority in a historic election result that sets South Africa on a new political path for the first time since the end of the apartheid system 30 years ago. years, when a white minority was in power.
With more than 99% of votes counted, the once-dominant ANC had received just over 40% in Wednesday’s elections, a far cry from the absolute majority it had held since the famous multiracial vote of 1994, which ended apartheid and brought him to power under Nelson Mandela. The final results have yet to be officially determined by the independent electoral commission that organized the elections, but the ANC cannot get more than 50%.
At the start of the elections, the commission said it would officially announce the results by Sunday, but it could come sooner.
While opposition parties hailed the result as a breakthrough for a country struggling with poverty and deep inequality, the ANC remained, in some ways, the largest party. However, he will now have to seek one or more coalition partners to remain in government and re-elect President Cyril Ramaphosa for a second and final term. Parliament elects the South African president after national elections.
“The way to save South Africa is to break the majority of the ANC and we have done that,” said main opposition leader John Steenhuisen.
The path ahead looks complicated for Africa’s most advanced economy, and no coalition is yet on the table.
Mr Steenhuisen’s Democratic Alliance received around 21% of the vote. Former President Jacob Zuma’s new uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party, which turned against the ANC he once led, came third with just over 14% of the vote in the first election in in which he participated. The Economic Freedom Fighters came in fourth, with just over 9 percent.
More than 50 parties ran in the elections, most of them received a minimal share of the vote, but the Alliance and MK seem to be the most obvious parties for the ANC to approach, given their distance of a majority. The ANC’s priority becomes the rapid formation of a coalition since Parliament must sit and elect a president within 14 days of the official proclamation of the final election results. Many negotiations will take place and they will probably be complicated.