South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has won a second term after his African National Congress party signed a coalition agreement with its long-time political rival. Photo / AP
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has won a second term after his African National Congress party signed a coalition agreement with its long-time political rival. Photo / AP
Cyril Ramaphosa was re-elected as President, securing 283 votes out of 400 in a Parliament vote.
The ANC signed an agreement with the Democratic Alliance, once its fiercest political foe.
This new government structure reflects the ANC’s drop to 40 per cent in voter support.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been re-elected by politicians after his African National Congress party struck a dramatic late coalition deal with the main opposition party and others to allow him to clinch a second term in office.
Ramaphosa won convincingly in a Parliament vote against a surprise candidate who was also nominated, Julius Malema, the leader of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters. Ramaphosa got 283 votes to Malema’s 44 in the 400-member house.
The 71-year-old Ramaphosa secured his second term with the help of politicians from the second biggest Democratic Alliance party and others after the ANC lost its 30-year parliamentary majority in a landmark election two weeks ago. The ANC signed an agreement with the DA – once its fiercest political foe – just hours before the vote for president, ensuring Ramaphosa returned as leader of Africa’s most industrialised economy.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa (centre) after being re-elected as leader of the country. Photo / AP
The parties will now co-govern South Africa in its first national coalition where no party has a majority.
The deal, which parties referred to as a government of national unity, brings the ANC together in government with the DA, a white-led party that had for years been the main opposition and the main rival for the ANC. At least two other smaller parties are also part of the agreement that put South Africa into uncharted waters.
“The government of national unity is on track,” ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said. “For the interest of the country, we said let’s work together. We have no fear of that.”
The agreement was necessary after the ANC lost its 30-year majority in a humbling national election for it last month. The ANC is the party of Nelson Mandela and had governed with a comfortable majority since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994.
That three-decade dominance ended in the May 29 election, when the ANC’s share of the vote dropped to 40 per cent amid discontent from South Africans over high levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
Analysts warn there might be complications ahead given the different ideologies of the ANC, a former liberation movement, and the centrist, business-friendly DA – the two biggest parties and the key players. The DA won 21 per cent of the vote in the national election, the second largest share.
Earlier, DA leader John Steenhuisen confirmed an agreement was signed. “From today, the DA will co-govern the Republic of South Africa in a spirit of unity and collaboration,” he said as he stepped away from the proceedings for a speech carried live on television. He called it a “historic step forward”.
The DA backed Ramaphosa under the agreement and because the two parties have a clear joint majority of seats in Parliament, Ramaphosa’s re-election was assured.
A protest in support of Palestinians takes place in Cape Town as Parliament sits for the first time since general elections last month. Photo / AP
The Parliament session, which started at 10am (local time), first went through the hours-long swearing-in of hundreds of new politicians and electing a speaker and a deputy speaker. The vote for president started late into the night and the results were announced after 10pm – more than 12 hours later.
Former president Jacob Zuma’s MK Party was boycotting the session, which did not affect the voting as only a third of the house is needed for a quorum.
Two other smaller parties said they would be part of the coalition agreement and Mbalula said the ANC was open to talking with anyone else who wanted to join the unity government. There are 18 political parties represented in Parliament and Mbalula said the multi-party agreement would “prioritise the country across the political and ideological divide”. Some parties refused to join.
The other two parties to join were the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Patriotic Alliance, which has drawn attention because of its strong anti-immigration stance and because its leader, Gayton McKenzie, served a prison sentence for bank robbery.
Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen laughs at the end of the swearing in ceremony for members of parliament in Cape Town. The DA has come to an agreement with the ANC and allowed Ramaphosa to be re-elected as President. Photo / AP
“The deal is we are putting South Africa first,” McKenzie said in an interview on state broadcaster SABC. “We are going to work together. We have decided we are not going to let South Africa die in our hands, on our watch.”
The ANC had faced a deadline to get a coalition agreement given Parliament had to sit for the first time and vote for the president within 14 days of the election results being declared on June 2. The ANC had been trying to strike a coalition agreement for two weeks and the final negotiations went through the night Thursday and into Friday, party officials said.
South Africa had not faced this level of political uncertainty since the ANC swept to power in the first all-race election in 1994 which ended nearly a half-century of racial segregation.
The party had held a clear majority in Parliament since then, meaning parliamentary votes for the president were formalities. Every South African leader since was from the ANC, starting with Mandela. This unity government also harked back to the way Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, invited political opponents to be part of a coalition in 1994 in an act of reconciliation when the ANC had a majority.
This time, the ANC’s hand was forced.
“The ANC has been very magnanimous in that they have accepted defeat and have said, ‘let’s talk’,” PA leader McKenzie said.
