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| GCIS |
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has acknowledged the challenging election result for his African National Congress (ANC) party, which lost its majority for the first time since apartheid ended 30 years ago. The ANC won 159 seats in the 400-seat parliament in Wednesday's election, down from 230 in the previous assembly. Ramaphosa still described the results as a victory for democracy and called 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 Ramaphosa, but it opposes a number of his government's key priorities. With all the votes counted, the ANC finished on 40%, lower than the party's feared worst-case scenario of 45%. The ANC now must go into a coalition to form the next government.
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. However, his party opposes two of the ANC's key priorities - its black empowerment policies 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 Ramaphosa. 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. There are now concerns over how Mr. Zuma's supporters may respond to the results.
Local issues could have been a big factor in that shift, with some community members turning their backs on the ANC because it had failed to fix acute water shortages. People in KwaZulu-Natal hope that now the election is over, the problem will be fixed for good.
