By Lou Newton, JOHANNESBURG
South Africa
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has admitted his African National Congress (ANC) party has suffered a challenging election result, after the party lost its majority for the first time since apartheid ended 30 years ago.
The ANC, once led by Nelson
Mandela, won 159 seats in the 400-seat parliament in Wednesday's election, down
from 230 in the previous assembly.
Mr Ramaphosa still described
the results as a victory for democracy, calling on rival parties to find common
ground - apparently preparing for coalition talks.
The opposition Democratic
Alliance (DA) party has said it is open to coalition talks with Mr Ramaphosa,
but it opposes a number of his government's key priorities.
With all the votes counted,
the ANC finished on 40% - down from 58% at the previous election, the electoral
commission announced on Sunday.
This was lower than the
party's feared worst-case scenario of 45%, analysts said. The ANC now must go
into a coalition to form the next government.
"Our people have spoken,
whether we like it or not, they have spoken," Mr Ramaphosa said.
"As the leaders of
political parties, as all those who occupy positions of responsibility in
society, we have heard the voices of our people and we must respect their
wishes."
He added that the voters
wanted the parties to find common ground.
"Through their votes,
they have demonstrated clearly and plainly that our democracy is strong and it
is enduring," he said.
South Africa's political
parties have two weeks to work out a coalition deal, then the new parliament
will sit to choose a president.
The centre-right DA remains
the second-largest party in parliament with 87 seats, and has said it is open
to talks of a coalition.
"We urge all others who
love our constitution and all it represents to set aside petty politics and
narrow sectarian interests and join hands now," DA leader John Steenhuisen
said.
However, his party opposes two
of the ANC's key priorities - its black empowerment policies, which aim to
giving black people a stake in the economy following their exclusion during the
racist apartheid era, and the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, which
promises universal healthcare for all.
The ANC has said both policies
are non-negotiable in coalition talks.
Former president Jacob Zuma,
who now leads the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party that came third with 58 seats,
did not attend the results announcement and had suggested that he might
challenge them.
The MK has said it would be
prepared to work with the ANC, but not while it was led by Mr Ramaphosa.
He replaced Mr Zuma as both
president and ANC leader following a bitter power struggle in 2018.
In an interview, Patrick
Gaspard, who was the US ambassador to South Africa in 2013-16, described the
two politicians as "sworn enemies".
Earlier on Sunday, Mr Zuma
called for an election rerun and said the electoral commission should not
announce the final results.
On Saturday, he warned the
commission that it would "be provoking us" if it ignored his demand
for a fresh election, and for an independent investigation into his party's
claims that it was rigged.
"Don’t start trouble when
there is no trouble,” he said.
There are now concerns over
how Mr Zuma's supporters may respond to the results.
The 82-year-old has been the
political wildcard in this election - and he is preparing to flex his muscles
as the kingmaker in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, where the MK party has
wrestled a huge chunk of votes from the ANC.
Formed just a few months ago,
results show that for the national election, it has taken the largest share of
the vote in the province - 44% to the ANC's 19%.
Local issues could have been a
big factor in that shift, with some community members turning their backs on
the ANC party because it had failed to fix acute water shortages.
Parts of the province, such as
Trenance Park, which is a mere 20 minutes' drive from the main city of Durban,
have had no tap water for 10 months.
Residents rely on water
tankers that sometimes do not deliver water on time.
People in KwaZulu-Natal hope
that now the election is over, the problem will be fixed for good.
Earlier, South Africa's police
chief warned that threats to destabilise the country would not be tolerated.
"There cannot be any room
for threats of instability in order to register objections or concerns about
the electoral processes," Police Minister Bheki Cele said at a news
conference.
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 because of anger over high levels of corruption,
unemployment and crime.
"There are tens of
millions of young people in that country who are called the Born Free
generation, born after 1994 after the end of apartheid, and they feel that
their country underwent a political transformation, but not an economic
one," Mr Gaspard told our reporter.
He added that back in 2015
"it was already becoming abundantly clear that there was a downward
trajectory for the ANC because it was failing to deliver on essential services
in the country", specifically mentioning rolling blackouts.
No comments:
Post a Comment