ANC considers national unity government in South Africa

South Africa’s African National Congress is considering the formation of a national unity government with willing rival parties, according to the party’s national working committee.

The party’s National Executive Committee, the ANC’s top decision-making body, will meet on Thursday to discuss the proposal. The former liberation party has been locked in talks over how to form the next government after it crashed to 40.2 per cent of the vote, losing its 30-year parliamentary majority, in last week’s shock election result.

“We are not new to constituting a government of national unity,” said Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, ANC spokesperson, referring to Nelson Mandela’s first government, which included members of the defeated National party as well as the Inkatha Freedom party. “We did that in 1994.”

Suggesting the electorate would favour a national unity government, she added: “We have been meeting with all parties that are keen to contribute to ideas on how we can collectively move our country forward to form a government that ensures national unity and stability.”

A grand coalition is the latest idea put forward by the ANC as different factions present competing visions over how to form the next government. But the prospect of a government of national unity spooked investors on Wednesday, with the rand falling sharply to around R18.94 against the dollar, from R18.65 before the ANC’s briefing.

The ANC has been holding talks with the Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party with 21.8 per cent of the vote, as well as Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters and the Inkatha Freedom party.

Bhengu-Motsiri said she was not yet certain if all parties would be included in a wider coalition. “It’s not a matter of a government of national unity constituted by an army of different parties,” she said. “It also depends on the negotiations currently under way.”

DA leader John Steenhuisen told the Financial Times his party would not join a coalition with either the EFF or former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.

“That’s a red line,” he said, adding that the DA would not enter into an alliance with any party that did not respect the constitution. This includes the EFF, which has campaigned on a platform of nationalising the banks and mines, and the MK party, which wants to scrap the constitution.

The DA would consider all other options, including a “full-blown” alliance or a looser supply and confidence agreement, “in a mature and good faith manner”, Steenhuisen said.

Zuma, who has called for a rerun of the election, appears to have snubbed the ANC. “I’m not able to put myself in the head of Zuma, but we have made approaches to the MK party,” said Bhengu-Motsiri.

Peter Attard Montalto, managing director of financial consultancy Krutham, said a grand coalition of all the parties would be doomed to fail.

“The ANC’s attempts to avoid solving its internal splits by getting DA and EFF in the same government is a non-starter,” he said. “If the DA stays out of a unity government, the market would blow up and the ANC would quickly come crawling back to the DA, only in a weaker position.”

Bhengu-Motsiri said a grand coalition was only one of various options being presented to its national executive, along with that of specific coalitions. Party insiders have raised the prospect of a coalition with the DA and IFP that would exclude the EFF and MK.

The briefing comes at an awkward time for the ANC after Zizi Kodwa, a working committee member who was also President Cyril Ramaphosa’s sports, arts and culture minister, was arrested and charged with corruption.

Kodwa was accused of having taken R1.6mn ($84,000) in bribes from the listed technology company EOH in 2016 while he was the ANC’s national spokesperson, at a time when the company was bidding for software contracts worth more than R400m from the city of Johannesburg. He denies the charges and was granted bail during an initial hearing on Wednesday.

Kodwa, who immediately resigned from the cabinet, is the latest in a long line of top ANC officials to face criminal charges for corruption, including its former secretary-general Ace Magashule and parliament speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.