By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The newly elected parliament in South Africa is to convene for the first time on Friday, when it is expected to vote for the country’s next President, authorities announced.
This comes as political parties scramble to form alliance, following an election in which no outright winner emerged.
On inauguration of the 400-seat National Assembly, members will appoint a speaker and start the process of electing the country’s president, task that could prove trickier than usual this year.
Heritage Times HT reports that for the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) lost its absolute parliamentary majority in the May 29 vote after securing just 40% of votes.
That represents its lowest ever score. This leaves it with the option of forming a coalition with other political parties to remain in power.
Under South Africa’s proportional representation system, for a government to have a guaranteed majority it would need to be formed of parties which together got more than 50% of the vote.
The ANC however fell short of this after taking a 40% share, with the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) getting 22%, the MK party of former President Jacob Zuma won 15% and the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) 9%.
READ ALSO: Fixing Nigeria With An Anthem
“The first sitting of the National Assembly shall be on Friday, 14 June 2024,” Chief Justice Raymond Zondo wrote in an order released on Monday to the media by the justice ministry.
The ANC has already indicated it wants to form a government of national unity with a broad group of opposition parties, ranging from the far right to the hard left.
The party will have 159 members in the National Assembly, down from 230 in 2019.
The DA won 87 seats with a liberal, free-market agenda.
The EFF secured 39 lawmakers and supports land redistribution and the nationalisation of key economic sectors.
