Will South African Cyril Ramaphosa be able to survive the ANC’s electoral setback? | Election news

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority in this week’s elections for the first time since the end of apartheid, a major setback for the party that led the country’s liberation of the domination of the white minority.

The ANC, which has ruled the country since 1994, has begun closed-door negotiations with other parties to try to form a governing coalition – something it has never had to do until now. Yet analysts say the party’s losses and the pressure it will face from potential alliance partners have also cast a cloud over the future of the man the ANC hoped would lead it to another term: President Cyril Ramaphosa.

With almost all votes counted, the ANC won about 40 percent of the mandate, followed by the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, with 21 percent. In third place is the great success of the election: the uMKhonto we Sizwe (MK) party of former president Jacob Zuma, which devastated the ANC’s core electoral base, appears ready to form government in the province of KwaZulu Natal and could prove crucial in determining whether the ANC forms the next government under Ramaphosa. The MK party won almost 15 percent of the national vote and 45 percent of the vote in KwaZulu Natal, Zuma’s home province.

Already the MP, whose senior leadership – including Zuma himself – is made up of many politicians from the ANC, has ruled out any deal with the ruling party unless he first sacks Ramaphosa. After leading the ANC to its worst ever electoral performance, Ramaphosa will face intense pressure to step down, analysts said.

“They lost the majority and they lost it badly,” said Richard Calland, Africa director at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. “This represents a very significant defeat.”

The ANC remains South Africa’s largest political party, and it is almost impossible that the next government will be formed without the party. He will therefore be able to lead the coalition negotiations, Callard said. “The question is whether Ramaphosa will lead these negotiations or whether he will resign or be ousted in the very short term. »

These questions are amplified by the limited options Ramaphosa and the ANC face as they try to assemble a coalition capable of governing.

Zuma versus Ramaphosa: A bitter tale

If the ANC and MK teamed up, they would gain a clear majority in Parliament. The ANC’s support would also help the MP cross the halfway mark in KwaZulu Natal, giving Zuma’s party a chance to form a government in its very first attempt: the party was only formed at the end of Last year.

Still, that’s easier said than done, analysts say.

The decline in voter support for the ANC comes against a backdrop of deteriorating public infrastructure, social inequality and increasing crime. South Africa has the highest unemployment rate in the world, at 33 percent, and youth unemployment at 45 percent. Recurring power outages have paralyzed the economy.

Ramaphosa and other ANC officials have also faced personal corruption scandals, with the president at one point facing a vote of no confidence over allegations of misconduct.

Yet behind the 17% drop in the ANC’s vote share since the 2019 elections, where it won 57% of the vote, is also the rise of Zuma’s MP.

Although Zuma personally selected Ramaphosa as his then vice president, the two men have since fallen out. Their grievances date back to 2018, when Zuma was forced by the ANC to resign as party leader and president due to multiple corruption scandals in which he was mired.

Acting as party leader and president, Ramaphosa set up a commission of inquiry to investigate Zuma and referred to his former boss’s presidency as years of corruption and waste. Zuma, in his public statements, has taken countless blows back at the president and the ANC.

Last December, Zuma supported the new opposition party MK while claiming to be part of the ANC, leading to his suspension. Analysts then predicted that Zuma aimed to challenge Ramaphosa and split the ANC’s votes in this week’s election, using his loyal support base in KwaZulu Natal. He has now carried out his threat.

“This is ‘unfinished business’ between the two, as President Ramaphosa has already said,” said Sanusha Naidu, an analyst at the Institute for Global Dialogue. “Zuma believes he needs to be vindicated for being accused of corruption. He feels that the institutions are against him. The MP does not consider Ramaphosa’s ANC to be a credible and legitimate organization.”

A difficult coalition

Despite witnessing a sharp decline in the ANC’s fortunes, Ramaphosa has been – at least until recently – the party’s most popular face. In internal ANC polls in March, the politician was found to be the most popular of the major party leaders and ranked even higher than the ANC itself. This makes it more difficult for the party to replace him, analysts say.

A former trade union leader, Nelson Mandela protégé and wealthy businessman, Ramaphosa is recognized by his supporters for his consistent pragmatism and for polishing South Africa’s image globally as a fighter for outsiders in the countries of the “South”.

His presidency was particularly praised for his support of the Palestinians and for bringing a historic genocide case against Israel to the International Court of Justice over the war on Gaza. This month, the World Court ruled that Israel must stop its military attack on Rafah in southern Gaza – a demand under international law that Israel ignored as it continued its attacks on the Palestinian city.

Instead of MK, a grand coalition with the DA could offer the ANC and South Africa a more stable governing alliance, analysts said. It won’t be easy. Critics of the DA have accused it of siding with the interests of the country’s white minority, and the party has been a staunch critic of the ANC and Ramaphosa. Before the elections, he promised to “save South Africa from the ANC” and never form a coalition government with it.

Today, however, he indicated that he was not closing any options. And analysts say an ANC-DA combination could be the best option for the country at present, unifying the nation and boosting investor confidence in Africa’s most advanced economy.

“There are deep differences between the two, but they are not insurmountable,” said Ebrahim Fakir, an analyst at the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy. “Thanks to this, the ANC has a better chance of stability and rehabilitation of government institutions that have been gutted – even if only in the short term. »

Another option, Fakir added, would be a government of national unity, in which all parties obtaining more than 10 percent of the vote would be assigned ministerial portfolios. This is the type of government that Nelson Mandela led after coming to power in 1994.

Regardless, there will be challenges, Fakir warned. “If the ANC joins the DA or a national unity government, the different parties will try to weaken or outsmart each other, so both are in danger,” he said.

Meanwhile, the ANC must consider another factor in its own leadership calculations, said Naidu of the Institute for Global Dialogue: will removing Ramaphosa from power actually help the party to restore ?

“Even if Ramaphosa is forced to leave or feels he must leave, it will not resolve the question of the stabilization of the ANC or whether the party can put the country before itself,” Naidu said. “That’s where we need that level of rationality and pragmatic thinking within the party.

“It’s not just about what happens to Ramaphosa, it’s actually about the country, the markets and, most importantly, the people.”