Ramaphosa re-elected South African president after striking deal with opposition

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Cyril Ramaphosa has been re-elected as South Africa’s president after a fraught two weeks of talks after his African National Congress failed to win a majority in the county’s seventh democratic election.

Ramaphosa, an economic centrist, has governed South Africa from 2018 when he succeeded the corruption-tainted Jacob Zuma. In a parliamentary vote on Friday night, Ramaphosa overwhelmingly defeated Julius Malema, the radical leader of the Economic Freedom Fighers (EFF), who campaigned on a platform of nationalising banks and other critical industries.

Ramaphosa won 283 votes to Malema’s 44, and will be inaugurated on Wednesday. 

His re-election had been far from certain since the May 29 election, in which the ANC won just 40.2 per cent of the vote as South Africans turned against Nelson Mandela’s former liberation party. The ANC has run the country since the end of white minority rule in 1994 but voters vented their anger over frequent power cuts, corruption and the collapse of services.

To ensure Ramaphosa’s re-election the ANC had to enter a power-sharing agreement with the opposition Democratic Alliance, a pro-market party that attracted many minority voters, as well as the Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). 

Negotiations continued until 2am on Friday and the final agreement was only signed mid-morning after parliament had already convened. As part of the agreement, the DA supported Ramaphosa’s re-election as president and the ANC’s Thoko Didiza for speaker of parliament. The DA’s Annelie Lotriet was elected deputy speaker.

Addressing parliament shortly before midnight on Friday, Ramaphosa described the power sharing deal as the birth of a new era.

“This not a grand coalition of two or three parties, This is a government of national unity and we have been here before. We were here in 1994 when we sought to unite our country and affect reconciliation,” he said, referring to the first unity government after the end of apartheid, which lasted until 1999.

Velenkosini Hlabisa, leader of the IFP, told Ramaphosa that under the power-sharing deal, “we will support you on every right decision, but where we must disagree, we will do so”.

News of the agreement boosted the country’s markets, which had feared an alliance between the ANC and either Malema’s EFF or Zuma’s new uMkhonto weSizwe Party, which favoured scrapping the constitution. The South African rand strengthened to R18.33 to the dollar on Friday, after weakening to around R19 earlier in the week.

John Steenhuisen, leader of the DA — a party that in an earlier incarnation opposed the apartheid government in the whites-only parliament of the time — told reporters that the deal was a “historical” moment which would allow his party to now “co-govern”.  

Helen Zille, the DA chair who signed the deal with ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, said: “This gives South Africa a chance of creating a stable democracy and an inclusive economy.” 

Mbalula told journalists that the agreement “emphasises stability”, but he said it did not mean political parties “cease to be who they are and what they believe in”. 

The coalition deal leans heavily on economic reforms, citing nine high-level priorities for fixing South Africa’s economy, which has struggled to exceed a 1 per cent annual growth rate over the past decade. These range from “rapid, inclusive and sustainable economic growth” to “stabilising local government”. 

Ann Bernstein, executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a Johannesburg-based think-tank, said the deal opened the door for a revival in the country’s economic growth. 

“It is hugely significant that parties committed to the rule of law and the constitution have come together to build a government based on those principles, because there were far worse alternatives,” she said.

“After 15 years of stagnation, this is an opportunity for a decisive government to really accelerate growth. The country is in a crisis, but this government of national unity could be a very positive development. The fact that the ANC has unequivocally accepted the results of the election is a very important moment for South Africa’s democracy.”