South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday urged party leaders to work together in the public interest after his African National Congress (ANC) lost its 30-year governing majority in a bruising general election, but, in a sign of the possible turmoil to come, graft-tainted former South African president Jacob Zuma boycotted the results ceremony and his party refused to recognize the outcome.
The final tally gave Ramaphosa’s ruling ANC 159 seats in the 400-seat National Assembly, its lowest number in a general election.
The center-right opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) was on 87, Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) on 58 and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of left-wing firebrand Julius Malema on 39, followed by several minority parties.
Photo: Bloomberg
The vote share of late South African president Nelson Mandela’s party slumped to just over 40 percent from the 57 percent it won in 2019.
The new parliament is to meet within two weeks and its first task would be to elect a president to form a new government, but with no outright winner for the first time since the advent of South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy, the ANC would need outside support to secure Ramaphosa’s re-election.
In an address after the official results ceremony, Ramaphosa was coy about his thinking regarding a deal, but stressed the need for all parties to respect the results and work together.
“Our people have spoken, whether we like it or not,” Ramaphosa said, in an apparent nod to the expected legal challenge from Zuma’s MK and the implicit threat of unrest. “As the leaders of political parties ... we must respect their wishes.”
The DA’s veteran white leader John Steenhuisen had repeated his pledge to work with the ANC, if only to head off what he has declared would be the “Doomsday Coalition” between the ruling party, Zuma’s MK and the EFF.
He described pledges in the MK and EFF manifestos to nationalize privately owned land and undermine judicial independence as “an all-out assault on the constitution of our country.”
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said that the party was having “exploratory discussions at the moment, we talk to everybody.”
He said the ANC hoped to achieve a deal “as fast as we can.”
In an ominous sign of disunity ahead, Zuma’s supporters in the often restive eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal paraded around the countryside in noisy celebratory convoys, but boycotted the provincial results announcement in Durban and the national event in Johannesburg.
Asked why Zuma stayed away, MK spokesman Nhlamulo Ndhlela said that to attend would be “tantamount to endorsing an illegal declaration.”
Zuma on Saturday had warned that to announce results he was not satisfied with would be tantamount to a “provocation.”
The US did not appear concerned over the results, with US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller posting on social media to congratulate South Africans on “serving as a standard bearer of democracy throughout Africa and the world.”
Zuma’s MK, formed barely eight months ago as a vehicle for the charismatic, but controversial 82-year-old to re-enter politics, came first in the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Assembly election, but without an outright majority.
His supporters have said they would not join a coalition unless there is an agreement to pardon Zuma for a conviction that saw him banned as a parliamentary candidate and to rewrite the nation’s constitution to permit him to stand.
Zuma, forced out of office as president and ANC leader in 2018 under a cloud of corruption allegations, was jailed for contempt of court in 2021, which triggered riots that left more than 350 people dead.
South African Minister of Police Bheki Cele said that the security forces were ready “to ensure continued peaceful conditions after the elections.”
Speaking alongside him, South African Minister of Defense and Military Veterans Thandi Modise said the government had “not engaged directly with the MK party,” but had “called for calm during the campaign.”
“We will not tolerate for anyone to tarnish South Africa,” Modise said.
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