A woman walks past Luthuli House, the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 5.Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress, badly bruised after a humiliating drop in its electoral support, is considering a Canadian-style minority government arrangement as one of its preferred options to maintain its grip on power.
An internal ANC discussion paper, seen by The Globe and Mail, outlines the benefits of a “supply and confidence agreement” between the ANC and the country’s biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA).
Such an agreement would allow the ANC to remain in government, despite holding only 40 per cent of seats in parliament after last week’s election in which the party lost its majority for the first time in its 30-year rule.
The potential agreement would have some parallels with the deal negotiated by the federal Liberals and New Democrats in Canada in 2022, and similar deals in Spain and Australia, the paper says. “It would have many advantages … preserving the independence of all parties and allowing the government to carry out its policy agenda without the constraints of a formal coalition agreement,” it says.
Under the suggested agreement, the DA and another small opposition party would obtain key posts in parliament, including possibly the Speaker’s job and the leadership of several top committees, but would remain outside cabinet and would formally support the ANC only during votes on confidence motions and budgets.
The possible agreement is facing strong resistance, however, from left-wing factions in the ANC and its allied trade unions and other partners, which are fiercely opposed to any deal with the centrist, pro-business DA.
Two of the ANC’s traditional partners, the COSATU trade union alliance and the South African Communist Party (SACP), have publicly criticized any notion of a deal with the DA. They noted that the DA is opposed to some of South Africa’s labour regulations and wants to freeze the minimum wage, allowing it to erode over time.
The DA is a leader of “neo-liberal forces, highly supported by dominant sections of capital, mainly the white bourgeoisie whose roots can be traced to the era of colonial and apartheid oppression of the Black majority,” the SACP said in a statement on Wednesday.
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A group of ANC members, organizing under the hashtag #NotWithTheDA, have launched a petition to oppose the move and are planning a protest outside a crucial meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee on Thursday.
Lindiwe Sisulu, a former South African foreign minister and current member of the ANC’s national executive committee, told local media that any agreement with the DA would be an “insult” and a disaster. “In all the time I spent in prison fighting apartheid, I did not do it for the DA,” she told the Independent Media newspaper group. “The DA is the epitome of what the previous [apartheid] government represented.”
While an informal minority-government arrangement is still on the table as an option, the ANC is also exploring a potential “national unity” government: a coalition agreement with a broad range of parties, including the radical left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the third-biggest opposition party, which has been eager for a coalition deal.
The ANC confirmed on Wednesday that it has already held discussions with five opposition parties, including the DA and the EFF. “The ANC is keen and determined to engage all parties and unite the broadest range of sectors of our population behind the urgent need to move our country out of the current potential electoral stalemate,” it said in a statement.
It acknowledged, however, that it failed to secure a meeting with the MK Party, led by former president Jacob Zuma, which won almost 15 per cent of the vote and became the second-biggest opposition party, despite being formed only six months ago.
The ANC could cobble together a majority in parliament if it forges an agreement with the EFF and one or two smaller parties – an agreement that would be attractive to its left-wing factions. This scenario has already sparked alarm among foreign investors and currency markets. South Africa’s currency, the rand, lost about 1.3 per cent of its value on Wednesday, falling to almost 19 to the U.S. dollar.
Mr. Zuma, meanwhile, has repeatedly alleged – without evidence – that the election was rigged against him. His party said it will reject any agreement with the ANC unless it gets rid of its leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced Mr. Zuma in 2018 after a corruption scandal.
The party’s rhetoric has sparked fears of violence, since Mr. Zuma’s supporters rioted and looted across the country in 2021 when he was briefly jailed on contempt-of-court charges.
The ANC insists it will keep Mr. Ramaphosa as president. And the DA has said it cannot join any coalition with Mr. Zuma or the EFF, describing the two parties as the “doomsday coalition” because of their demands for nationalization and land expropriation.