JOHANNESBERG: South Africa’s governing African National Congress lost its 30- yr- ancient outright majority in this week’s election, winning just 159 seats in the 400- seat parliament, established results showed Sunday. Former president Jacob Zuma stayed away from the news, as promised by President Electoral Ramaphosa and the officials of the majority of the opposition parties.
No one group managed to gain a majority in the National Assembly.
Voters, angry at joblessness, inequality and rolling blackouts, slashed support for the legacy party of Nelson Mandela to 40 %, down from 57.5 % ( or 230 seats ) in the 2019 parliamentary vote. The centre-right Democratic Alliance ( DA ) won 87 seats with 22 % of the vote behind the ANC. In third place was Zuma’s american extreme group, the recently- formed uMkonto weSizwe ( MK), which grabbed 14.5 % of the ballot and 58 seating- but had unfortunately denounced the process.
The ANC stated that it is available to discussions with any party, but that it would never agree to change Ramaphosa in order to form a ruling coalition.
