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THE African National Congress (ANC) party has lost its parliamentary majority in a historic election result that puts South Africa on a new political path for the first time since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule 30 years ago.
With more than 99 percent of votes counted yesterday, the ANC had received nearly 40 percent in Wednesday’s election, well short of the majority it had held since the famed all-race vote of 1994 that ended apartheid and brought it to power under Nelson Mandela.
The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), had 21,63 percent; and uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), a new party led by former president and ANC leader Jacob
Zuma, managed to grab 14,71 percent — pulling away votes from the ANC.
“We can talk to everybody and anybody,” Cde Gwede Mantashe, the ANC chairperson and current mines and energy minister, told reporters, dodging a question about who the party was discussing a possible coalition deal with.
Vote tallying was entering its final stages last night, with results from 99,53 percent of polling stations giving the ANC 40,21 percent.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, got 9,48 percent.
“We are going to negotiate with the ANC” for a possible coalition deal, Malema told journalists at the results centre, although that would not be quite enough to clinch a majority without including another party on the current count.
As of last night, the final results were still to be formally declared by the independent Electoral Commission, but the ANC cannot pass 50 percent.
The ANC has won every previous national election by a landslide since the historic 1994 vote, but over the last decade, its support has dwindled.
MK’s strong performance, especially in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal, is one of the main reasons the ANC failed to secure a majority.
Analysts say one option for the ANC could be a “government of national unity” involving a broad spectrum of many parties, rather than a formal coalition involving a few — an arrangement similar the one set up after 1994’s historic all-race vote.
Malema said the EFF was against that idea and preferred to be part of a coalition.
Some parties have questioned what they say are vote-counting inconsistencies that may lead to some results being contested.
Electoral commission chairperson Mosotho Moepya told a news conference yesterday that “every concern raised in these objections will be considered and we will do so carefully”.
ANC first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane, meanwhile, urged voters and communities to remain peaceful. — Wires
Online Reporter