CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Humbled by a stinging election result, South Africa’s African National Congress was talking to everyone in an effort to form a stable coalition government for Africa’s most advanced economy after it lost its 30-year majority, a top party official said Sunday.
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said the party was open to all negotiations, even with the main opposition Democratic Alliance, which has led the chorus of criticism of the ANC for years but is viewed by many analysts as the most stable coalition option for South Africa.
The ANC won just over 40% of the vote in Wednesday’s election to lose its long dominance of South African politics. The ANC remained the biggest party but it means the country will likely have to form a coalition government for the first time since it achieved democracy with the end of the apartheid system in 1994.
The DA won the second most votes with 21% and the two parties would hold a majority together and be able to govern.
That doesn’t mean it will be easy to marry them, with Mbalula conceding that the two were like “oil and water” considering their ideological differences. But he indicated that the ANC could be flexible. The ANC was talking to everyone, Mbalula said, with two other main opposition parties and several smaller ones all in the mix. A coalition could involve several parties to foster unity.
Mbalula said that the ANC was only beginning “talks about talks.”
“There is no party we are not going to talk to,” Mbalula said. “We are looking at the scenarios, we are looking at the options.”
The election results were due to be formally declared later Sunday by the Independent Electoral Commission, a rubber-stamping of an outcome that was already clear.
There is some time pressure for coalition talks to progress and for the uncertainty to be minimized given South Africa’s new Parliament needs to sit for the first time and elect a president within 14 days of the election results being declared.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the leader of the ANC, is seeking a second and final term and Mbalula said his position as leader of the party was not in question despite pressure on the 71-year-old man after he oversaw the ANC losing its majority. Mbalula said the ANC would not consider the demands by the MK Party of former President Jacob Zuma that Ramaphosa step down as a condition for talks.
“No political party will dictate terms to us, the ANC. They will not ... You come to us with that demand, forget (it),” Mbalula said.
South Africa is a leading voice for its continent and the developing world on the global stage and is due to take over the presidency of the Group of 20 rich and developing nations late this year. It’s the only African nation in that group.
“Everyone is looking to see if South Africa can weather the storm and come out the other side,” political analyst Oscar van Heerden said on the eNCA news network.
The ANC is the party that led South Africa out of the brutal apartheid system of racial segregation under Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela. This election saw an unprecedented slump in its support, with voters seen to be deserting the party due to its failure to solve widespread poverty and extremely high unemployment levels, as well as problems with the delivery of basic government services to many in a nation of 62 million.
“The elections have humbled us, they have brought us where we are,” Mbalula said, adding the ANC respected the will of the South African people. “We have heard them,” he said.
Amid many options, the ANC could also join with MK and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, although they have been cast as partners that would make investors uneasy. Both have pledged to nationalize parts of South Africa’s economy, including its gold and platinum mines, among the world’s biggest producers.
The DA has long said it will not work with the EFF and MK, calling them a “doomsday coalition" for South Africa. DA leader John Steenhuisen repeated that stance Sunday in a speech on national television but said his party was starting talks with others and would approach them “with cool heads and open minds.”
Political analyst van Heerden said an ANC-DA coalition would “possibly give stability” but there were some within the ANC who would oppose it. Other smaller parties could be involved to dilute it and make it more palatable for the ANC, some commentators said.
“The DA has approached the ANC as the enemy over many, many years,” van Heerden said. “The next few days is going to be a very difficult period. People will have to be mature behind closed doors.”
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