JOHANNESBERG: In this week’s election, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) lost its outright majority it has enjoyed for the past 30 years and won only 159 seats out of 400 in the parliament, as official results showed on Sunday. The declaration was attended by president Cyril Ramaphosa and politicians from most of the competing parties, while former president Jacob Zuma was absent in an apparent indication that he intends to challenge the outcome.
No party obtained a majority in the country’s national assembly.
Furious because of unemployment, disparities and repeated blackout some electorate slashed backing for Nelson Mandela’s ruling party to 40% compared with 57.5% (or 230 chairs) during last year’s parliamentary poll. Behind ANC was Democratic Alliance (DA), which is center-right with 87 seats at 22 per cent vote share. And finally Zuma’s new radical party – uMkonto weSizwe (MK), which took part in elections for first time ever – finished third after winning just over one tenth of all votes cast in total and having boycotted all ballots anyway.
Nonetheless, ANC said that it would talk to any political organization but had pledged not to remove Ramaphosa from his position prior to entering into coalition government.
