The ruling ANC is leaning on former foes to give President Cyril Ramaphosa a second term and extend his three decades in power.
South Africa’s newly elected parliament has convened to choose the next president, with the country in a tense political situation since last month’s election.
Parliamentarians are expected to re-elect President Cyril Ramaphosa and form an unprecedented coalition government when they meet on Friday, after his ruling African National Congress (ANC) hastily hammered out the coalition deal after the May 29 vote.
President Ramaphosa (71) is seeking a second term, but his ANC has lost the majority (40% of the vote) it had held for many years and is weakened. To return to the presidency, he will need the support of other parties.
The ANC reportedly won 21 percent of the vote on Friday and reached an agreement to form a coalition government with the main coalition party, the Democratic Alliance.
The deal also includes the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Patriotic Alliance, with the DA taking the deputy speaker position, according to state broadcaster SABC. It is unclear whether Ramaphosa’s coalition partners will elect him as president.
“There’s so much uncertainty surrounding the negotiations so far that it’s unclear how stable the government will be,” said Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Cape Town. “It’s crucial that the government is stable, especially for South Africa’s struggling economy,” she added.
Miller said economists and markets had reacted quite positively to the expected coalition agreement between the DA and the Inkatha Freedom Party. “To the markets, this would represent the most stable government,” she said.
The ANC, which had been in power for 30 years, proposed forming a national unity government after the election and invited all 17 other parties that had won seats in parliament to join, but some refused.
If President Ramaphosa is nominated as the sole candidate, he will automatically win, allowing for a smooth transition to a second term, but if other candidates from other parties are nominated, a vote will take place.
The ANC also faced a deadline to work out some form of coalition agreement because parliament must convene for the first time to elect a president within 14 days of the results being announced – the deadline is Sunday.
Parliament’s sitting on Friday is expected to last several hours as the 400 members elect a speaker and deputy speaker and then vote for president. At least one political party, former ANC leader and South African president Jacob Zuma’s MK party, has said it will boycott the first parliamentary session and its 58 members will not take their seats.
The vote is not expected to affect the process because South Africa’s constitution requires that at least a third of the 400 lawmakers be present for a quorum to be reached and a vote to take place – and the ANC alone holds more than a third of the seats.
South Africa has not faced such political uncertainty since 1994, when the ANC took power in the country’s first all-race elections, ending nearly half a century of white-minority rule under the apartheid system.
Since then, the ANC has held an overwhelming majority in Parliament, presidential elections have become a formality, and every South African leader since Nelson Mandela has been from the ANC.
Parliament will also meet in unusual circumstances after a fire gutted Cape Town’s parliament building in 2022, so lawmakers will choose the next leader at a conference centre near the city’s waterfront.
