Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
02-06-2024
PRETORIA: South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is under growing pressure after leading the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to its worst election result in 30 years, forcing it to share power.
With votes in from most districts, the ANC is on 40% – down from 58% at the previous election.
This is lower than the party’s feared worse-case scenario of 45%, analysts say,
The ANC has always polled above 50% since the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, which saw Nelson Mandela become president but support for the party has been dropping significantly due to anger over high levels of corruption, unemployment and crime.
Citing the cost-of-living crisis and frequent power-cuts, a woman told media she ended a 30 year voting streak for the ANC in favor of the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) this time.
“This result is not good. I wanted it out of government. We need to give someone else a chance,” she said
The final results will be announced at 18:00 local time (17:00 BST) on Sunday.
The ANC leadership has begun to consult internally to prepare for complex coalition talks.
Its options are the DA, the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party led by former President Jacob Zuma, or the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
Both the EFF and MK advocate seizing white-owned land and nationalizing the country’s mines.
The MK has said it would be prepared to work with the ANC but not while it was led by Ramaphosa.
He replaced Zuma as both president and ANC leader following a bitter power struggle in 2018.
MK supporters have been celebrating overnight in Durban, the biggest city in the party’s heartland of KwaZulu-Natal province.
ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe said his party was unlikely to form an alliance with the centre-right DA, which is currently polling in second place with 22% of the vote.
He said there would have to be “policy alignment” between parties to form a coalition agreement.
For the ANC, its black empowerment policies aimed at giving black people a stake in the economy following their exclusion during the racist apartheid era were “non-negotiable”.
He added that any coalition partner would have to agree to the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, which promises universal health care for all, signed into law earlier this month.
The DA opposes both the NHI and the ANC’s black empowerment policies.
Despite the ANC’s reluctance to align with the DA, its leader John Steenhuisen hasn’t ruled out the idea but if an alliance with the ANC was reached there would be a few non-negotiables, he said.
“Respect for the rule of law and the constitution, a social market economy that treats the private sector as partners in the growth agenda.
“Zero tolerance for corruption and cadre deployment, and an absolute laser-like focus on economic policies that grow jobs.”
Steenhuisen also told media he would have to consult pre-election coalition partners before considering any negotiations but he ruled out the EFF and the MK party as potential coalition partners. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
