South African leaders are set to elect the country’s new president tomorrow, June 14, following their swearing-in at the first sitting of Parliament. In the recent elections, the African National Congress (ANC), led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, failed to secure a majority for the first time in three decades, coercing them into lobbying other parties to align with them. The new parliament will also reveal the structure of the unity government they have managed to form.
The South African lawmakers are also expected to elect Parliament’s new speaker and deputy speaker, choices that will be determined by negotiations that have taken place between the ANC and opposition parties since the country’s election results were declared nearly two weeks ago.
The ANC won 40 per cent of the national vote during the country’s highly contested elections, followed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) with just over 21 per cent. The party with the third highest votes is the newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe Party, which gained about 15 per cent of the votes in their first-ever election.
In the most recent development, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the fifth-largest party with 3.85 per cent of the vote, confirmed it had decided to join the national unity government. The IFP, a conservative party with a strong Zulu base, received about 4 per cent of the vote in the election.