ANC eyes potential coalition partners to lead South Africa government

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.