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CAPE TOWN, South Africa – South Africa’s Parliament is due to elect a President today and major political parties are still working out the last details of a coalition agreement that might see President Cyril Ramaphosa return for a second term as the country’s leader.
The African National Congress lost its 30-year majority in an election two weeks ago, thereby forcing it to approach other parties for some kind of agreement to co-govern.
The ANC will need help from other lawmakers re-electing President Ramaphosa as it no longer has a Parliamentary majority.
How the President is elected
South Africans elect a new Parliament every five years, casting their ballots for parties who are allocated seats based on their share of the vote.
Those lawmakers then elect the President.
Since the ANC always had a majority ever since the end of white majority rule under the apartheid system in 1994, the vote for President was previously a formality and was always the ANC leader.
However, this time is different.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, 71, could still get a smooth ride to a second term if he is the only candidate nominated in Parliament today — he’d then be automatically re-elected.
But if another candidate or candidates are nominated, a vote follows, and the ANC would need its coalition partners to secure President Ramaphosa’s re-election.
The key piece
The main opposition Democratic Alliance now holds the key with its 87 seats, the second highest number behind the ANC’s 159.
The DA has not confirmed that it has joined the unity government, although it has previously said it is willing. It says it just needs to work out the details with the ANC. That is the crucial negotiation, and those talks were expected to continue on Thursday.
Opposition to the coalition
Two other major parties, the new MK Party of former President Jacob Zuma and the Economic Freedom Fighters have said they will not join a unity government.
MK also tried to get the Parliament sitting halted in court but lost its case. MK says its 58 new lawmakers will boycott today’s first sitting of the new Parliament but that shouldn’t affect any vote for President.
South Africa’s constitution says at least one-third of Parliament’s 400 lawmakers need to be present to attain a quorum and for votes to go ahead. The ANC holds more than one third of the seats on its own.
What will happen
The Chief Justice will oversee the first part of the Parliamentary session, when lawmakers are sworn in before electing the Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
Then comes the vote for President.
There are 18 political parties represented in South Africa’s Parliament for this five-year term, from the ANC with 159 seats down to the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, the GOOD party and the United Africans Transformation party with one seat each. –
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