JOHANNESBERG: South Africa‘s governing African National Congress lost its 30-year-old outright majority in this week’s election, winning only 159 seats in the 400-seat parliament, official results showed Sunday. Prez Cyril Ramaphosa and the politicians of most of the rival parties attended the announcement, but in a sign he intends to challenge the result, former prez Jacob Zuma stayed away.
No single party won a majority in the National Assembly.
Voters, angry at joblessness, inequality and rolling blackouts, slashed support for the legacy party of Nelson Mandela to 40%, down from 57.5% (or 230 seats) in the 2019 parliamentary vote. Behind the ANC came the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) on 87 seats with 22% of the vote. In third place was Zuma’s upstart radical party, the newly-formed uMkonto weSizwe (MK), which grabbed 14.5% of the vote and 58 seats – but had nevertheless denounced the process.
The ANC said that it is open to talking to any party but vowed not to replace Ramaphosa as a condition to forming a governing coalition.
