South Africa: Coalition talks set to start after ANC loses majority • FRANCE 24 English

South Africa: Coalition talks set to start after ANC loses majority • FRANCE 24 English

in South Africa after their biggest election defeat in 30 years the ruling African National Congress says it will enter Coalition talks to form a new government with virtually all votes counted from Wednesday’s poll thec got just over 40% of the vote failing to win a majority and dropping about 17 points from its score in the last election parties must agree to a coalition within 14 days the anc’s chairman has said they are ready to talk to anybody and everybody for some analysis I’m joined in the studio by our International Affairs commentator Douglas Herbert Doug hello this is a historically low result for thec and it turns out youth voters really played a big role yeah and look there’s nothing new and flashing in that headline right I mean in elections everywhere when you have generational shifts New Generation coming in uh you often have them souring on a party that’s either been in power a long time been a dominant party we’ve seen it in the United States we’ve seen it in Russia we’re seeing it in South Africa um so that’s not the the the breaking news here what is interesting though is the fact that the big issues we’ve been talking about this election why is this been happening what have been the dominant issues it’s been things like soaring unemployment right high unemployment South Africa having the highest not making this up the highest unemployment rate in the world 33% overall but where it really hits that unemployment number and where your eyes start to to open is that among the youth uh people anywhere from sort of 18 to 49 it’s uh 45 just over 45% that’s nearly half of the youth population that is unemployed so you can imagine uh why some of them might be disinclined to go to the polls and vote for the same party no matter what its historic iconic reputation has been the party of their parents and grandparents the party of The Liberation struggle led by Nelson Mandela we all remember those heroic images from 30 years ago but they’re disinclined because basically their attitude is well show me the money what have you done for me lately ANC so while it’s true that a lot of the Young Generation of of Voters have have grown up in households where they’ve heard their parents and their grandparents telling them you know heroic uh uh stories and anecdotes about the struggle uh to break free of apartheid and white minority rule uh real stories vividly lived stories by their own by only one generation above them they themselves saw a mixed bag right some of those voters saw the Euphoria of those years after 1994 they remember a lot of them Nelson Mandela they were kids they were young perhaps coming into power they remember how euphoric that time was but they’ve also felt since then a lot of Despair and they’ve felt a lot of disappointment because like I said at the beginning they just feel like thec has been resting on its Laurels hasn’t really done anything for them and they’re not ready to just blindly vote for a party on the basis of its historic iconic albeit storied reputation so a new generation kind of Shifting the balance of power then South Africa now entering this new era of Coalition building how hard is that going to be for thec very tough extremely tough Coalition talks often with bitter Rivals one of the stories of this election is there’s been more than a dozen uh you know opposition parties around a dozen and they it’s a fragmented political landscape now and when we’re talking uh the types of parties that they’re going to have to negotiate with uh there’s a new party formed by the former president who’s now amidst uh you know still facing corruption allegations still his his legal troubles Jacob Zoomer rling around him he broke away from thec formed a new Party named after the anc’s former paramilitary Wing the MK party which has been doing very well he says absolutely no way we would even think of sitting in a coalition uh with thec unless they ditched the current president siril Raposa who is an anathema to people like Jacob Zuma so and and andc in turn saying there’s absolutely no way as any condition for forming a coalition that we are going to scrap ramaphosa big question mark uh you know is still over his fate will they ends up scrapping him they say for now absolutely no way but there are also other parties some sort of considered radical left parties uh right now including MK but also the eff it’s an economic uh Freedom Party uh these are parties that are way to the left of of of thec and meanwhile on the other side you have this the second place party the Democratic alliance with about 22% of the vote um it is you know a party that’s LED right now um by white minority uh figures you know wh Le uh party uh seen as very business friendly seen is to the right of of Center and and so any choice they make for a coalition is going to involve very very tough concessions what thec is saying while these will be tough talks what thec is very clear and saying is it’s trying to send the message we’ve heard you we’ve got in the message we have a lot of work to do to clean up our own house right now we are humbled by this outcome so they’re not trying they’re not in denial about it but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to form a coalition they have two weeks to do so at the end of those two weeks after the results are de two weeks to do so uh they will have to the new Parliament will sit and that Parliament is the one that’s going to have to choose a new president so there is a lot of what ifs right now hanging above looming above this electoral equation we’ll know in a couple of hours the official results and then it’s anyone’s guess from there it’s going to be a very interesting two weeks coming up in South Africa Doug thank you so much for that that’s our International Affairs commentator Douglas Herbert

South Africa’s ruling ANC said Sunday (June 2) that it would enter talks with other parties to form a new government, after losing its three-decade-old absolute majority in a watershed election. With 99.91 percent of the votes from Wednesday’s election counted, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress had only 40.2 percent, a catastrophic slump from the 57.5 percent it won in 2019. FRANCE 24’s Douglas Herbert gives us his analysis.
#elections #Pretoria #SouthAfrica

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