Bonolo Makgale, Democracy Practitioner and Programme Manager at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, has termed the outcome of South Africa’s 2024 general elections as a “interesting turn of events”.
She noted that South Africa’s ruling African National Congress lost its majority in general elections last week for the first time in 30 years, dating back to the country’s first post-apartheid elections.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM, she stated that the ANC has been the leading political party, with the majority seat in parliament.
However, what they say after the announcement of the results “is an interesting turn-around in terms of how our politics are playing out… The ANC has been the leading political party, which means that it is the political party with the majority seats in parliament. What we saw after the announcement of the results was that the ANC, for the first time in 1994, lost the majority seat in parliament.
In the 2019 elections, the ANC was sitting about 250 seats out of about 400 seats in parliament. The other seats were occupied by other political parties. And the ANC managed to win about 159 seats in these elections which means they lost close to 71 seats. For the first time in our democracy, the ANC does not have the majority seats in parliament.”
According to Bonolo Makgale, former President Jacob Zuma’s WeSizwe Party won approximately 58 seats in parliament, while the Democracy Alliance secured 78 seats and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) won 39 seats.
She said the results of the 2024 national election brought an end to 30 years of electoral dominance by the African National Congress.
The party secured 40.18% of the vote, while the Democratic Alliance got 21.81%, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party 14.58%, and the Economic Freedom Fighters 9.52%.
According to her, because the ANC does not have the majority that is required of them, they are thinking of getting into coalition with other political parties.
She disclosed that the ruling African National Congress has decided to form a national unity government with major opposition parties.
The decision was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday, June 6, 2024, after days of negotiations within the ANC and between major parties.
Per the rules in South Africa, the ANC now has a constitutional deadline of June 18 to negotiate the specifics of the national unity government.
The national unity government appears to include all of the major political parties in the legislature.
If this is achieved, this type of joint government will mean different parties getting to control different ministerial positions.
Bonolo Makgale added that historically, this system of government was established by the late Nelson Mandela post-apartheid.
This, she noted, was to promote national unity, peace, stability, and cohesion in South Africa, but this arrangement was shortlived when one of the parties decided to leave the coalition arrangement.
Meanwhile, she has indicated that they have been observing this incremental decline of supporters of the ANC since the 2009 elections.
“So the decline has been happening, but this time around, it really took the ANC a hard knock.
One could argue that South Africans are tired of the ANC because the ANC has not been able to fulfil some of their promises that they made to South African citizens. South Africa’s have not been able to enjoy the dividend of democracy and promises that were made, and the fact that now, South Africans have decided to explore other viable alternatives—that’s one, but also, if you look at our voter turnout, most South Africans have decided not to vote.”
Several voters, she claimed, did not vote in the general elections, noting the country’s very low turnout of only 58.64 percent of voters.
She stated that while a large number of people did not vote, some did vote for other political parties.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
