Cape Town, South Africa – Late-night negotiations and an eleventh-hour agreement led to the formation of South Africa’s first-ever coalition government on Friday, with President Cyril Ramaphosa at its head.
The multiparty coalition signed its agreement only on Friday, as members of parliament were sworn in after marathon negotiations and back-and-forth calls between Ramaphosa and leaders of other parties.
Late Friday night, Ramaphosa was elected as the country’s president in parliament. Under the unprecedented coalition agreement, the Democratic Alliance (DA) – the African National Congress’s (ANC) official opposition until now – and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) voted for an ANC president for the first time.
The multiparty coalition was prompted after the ANC suffered its worst electoral decline in 30 years. The party holds 159 of 400 seats in parliament – short of the 201 seats needed to have a majority – after winning 40 percent of the vote in the country’s May 29 election.
After days of internal talks within the ANC, Ramaphosa announced last week that the party would seek a “government of national unity”. But the left-leaning Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK Party) – which was created months before the election and ate into the ANC’s traditional voter support – refused to join the government, especially with the DA a part of it. The MK Party had also demanded Ramaphosa’s removal from the presidency.
The right-leaning DA, with 21 percent of the seats in parliament, will now be the ANC’s main partner in government with the support of the nationalist IFP. The parties agreed to an eight-page framework that will govern their unity government, including a clause stating that a decision could only be made if “sufficient consensus” was reached.
This means that Ramaphosa and the ANC will not be able to make decisions without buy-in from coalition partners. The parties agreed to 10 fundamental principles, which included respect for the constitution, and positions against racism and sexism.
In the agreement signed, the parties agreed that “rapid, inclusive and sustainable economic growth” would be the coalition government’s apex priority.
The ‘hard part’ starts now
Former DA leader and negotiating team member Tony Leon said that he had never imagined a world where the ANC and the DA would co-govern.
