The African National Congress was holding high-stakes internal talks on Tuesday about which parties it should approach to form South Africa’s next government, with diametrically opposed Marxists and free-marketeers on the menu of options.
After 30 years of dominance since Nelson Mandela led it to power in the milestone 1994 elections that marked the end of apartheid, the ANC lost its majority in last week’s election. It remains the largest party but can no longer govern alone.
Voters punished the former liberation movement for high levels of poverty, joblessness and inequality, rampant crime, rolling power cuts and corruption – problems that have held South Africa back and will challenge the next government.
It will have 159 seats out of 400 in the new National Assembly, while the free-marketeer Democratic Alliance (DA) will have 87, the populist uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) 58, the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) 39 and the socially conservative Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) 17.
The new parliament must convene by June 16 and one of its first acts will be to choose the nation’s president. As things stand, that looks likely to be the incumbent, ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa, although he may come under pressure to quit or prepare for a succession given his party’s poor showing.
A working committee of 27 ANC officials was due to meet on Tuesday to draw up a menu of options to present to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) on Wednesday.
The Daily Maverick, a South African news website, published details from three internal ANC discussion documents it said it had obtained, outlining scenarios.
According to one of those documents, the preferred option was a confidence-and-supply agreement in which the ANC would hold executive power, with some positions for the IFP, while the DA would have the upper hand in parliament, holding the Speaker’s seat and powerful committee positions.
Under that scenario, the DA and IFP would agree to support the ANC minority government on key votes such as the budget or any confidence motions, in exchange for policy concessions and involvement in the legislative process.
