The position of South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is a “no-go area” for coalition talks, the general secretary of the African National Congress has said, before the announcement of final results from last week’s election, in which the party lost its majority for the first time in 30 years of full democracy.
Ramaphosa’s bitter rival, the former president Jacob Zuma, whose new party came a surprise third, said the results announcement should not go ahead. Zuma said “people would be provoked”, raising the spectre of the deadly riots that broke out when he was sent to prison in 2021.
With 99.87% of polling stations having returned results, the ANC, which led the fight to free South Africa from apartheid, was on 40.2% of the vote, a collapse from 57.5% in the 2019 elections. High unemployment, power cuts, violent crime and crumbling infrastructure have contributed to a haemorrhaging of support for the former liberation movement.
The ANC had also lost its majority in three provincial elections: Northern Cape; Gauteng, which is home to the commercial centre Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria; and KwaZulu-Natal, where Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) was the largest party on 45.4% of the vote.
In the national vote, the pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) was on 21.8%, the MK on 14.6% and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a Marxist-Leninist party led by the ousted ANC youth leader Julius Malema, on 9.5%.
On Sunday morning, the ANC general secretary, Fikile Mbalula, told a press conference at the election results centre: “If you come to us with a demand that Ramaphosa must step down as the president, that is not going to happen. It’s a no-go area. You come to us with that demand, forget it.”
MK leaders have said they will not work with the ANC while it is led by Ramaphosa, who Zuma is hell-bent on exacting revenge against. Zuma was president from 2009 to 2018 and was forced to resign by the ANC amid corruption allegations, which he denies.
“Political parties have approached us and we will be talking to … everybody,” Mbalula said. “Talks about talks are in full swing.”
“We’ve got many reservations about that party, but we will talk to them,” he said of the MK. “But no political party will dictate terms like that to us as the ANC.”
The ANC is in its weakest position since it swept to power under Nelson Mandela in 1994. Nonetheless, it has options beyond Zuma’s MK.
A tie-up with the DA could be favoured by the more business-friendly wing of the ANC. However, such a coalition would face criticisms from the many black South Africans who see the white-led DA as favouring the interests of white people, which the DA denies. Some analysts have said that bringing in a third, black-led party could help the ANC head off those criticisms.
DA leaders have said a coalition is an option, as well a “confidence and supply” arrangement with an ANC minority government and staying in opposition.
Another option for the ANC, and one that is likely to be preferred by the leftwing of the party is to link up with the EFF.
That option would need another partner to clear the 50% needed, though. Often mentioned is the Inkatha Freedom party (IFP), which has 3.9% of counted votes and, like the MK, gets most of its support from Zulu people.
Meanwhile, the MK has been demanding a recount, making unsubstantiated allegations of vote rigging.
“Nobody must declare tomorrow. If that happens, people will be provoked, we know what we are talking about,” Zuma, 82, told reporters at the results centre on Saturday. “Don’t start trouble when there is no trouble.”
The words of Zuma, who was the ANC’s intelligence chief during apartheid, have raised fears of violence. More than 300 people were killed in riots in July 2021 riots after Zuma was sent to jail for contempt of court.
The constitution stipulates that parliament must sit within 14 days of the final election results and elect a president at that first sitting.