JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) emerged from the country's May 29 election with just 40.2% of the vote — down from 57.5% five years ago.
The
ANC, who liberated South Africa from apartheid in 1994,
scored the largest share of any party but without
the comfortable majority it has enjoyed for the last 30 years. It now
needs to choose a partner with whom to govern, plunging South Africa into
unknown political waters.
As political party
leaders embark
on coaliation talks, ordinary South Africans are debating the best
potential partners for the ANC, with the center-right Democratic Alliance
(DA), former ANC president Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the
Marxist-influenced Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the Zulu nationalist Inkatha
Freedom Party (IFP) at the top of the list to form the next government.
Some South Africans told DW
that they wanted the ANC to form a coalition with the DA, arguing that the two
parties have valuable governing experience. The DA's experience comes
at the provincial level in the Western Cape, where the major tourist city
of Cape Town is located, while the ANC brings its national experience to the
table.
But Muzi Ngobese, a strong
critic of a potential ANC-DA alliance, said Black South Africans would end
up being completely ignored under such a scenario.
"A DA-ANC coalition will
be something more of a disadvantage to the progress of what our heroes fought
for in 1994 because it would mean less for the development of Black-owned
businesses," he said.
Muziwakhe Mafungo said he
would support an ANC-EFF coalition — provided that EFF leader Julius
Malema was its president.
"The best coalition that
can happen right now is between the EFF and the MK, and then maybe the ANC
because the ANC can't do anything," Mafungo told DW. "I believe
the EFF will challenge the ANC even if they go into a coalition with them."
But critics fear that the
EFF's stance to nationalize mines and banks and expropriate land without
compensation could scare investors and worsen unemployment.
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