A week after his party, the African National Congress, failed to win majority seats in South Africa’s national election, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he would form a government of national unity with opposition parties. 

“We invite political parties to form a government of national unity as the best option to move our country forward,” Mr Ramaphosa said in a live broadcast on Thursday night. “This moment calls for the broadest unity of the people of South Africa.”

“A Government of National Unity is the most viable, most effective, and most powerful way of meeting the expectations of all South Africans at this moment,” said a tweet from the live broadcast shared on X by Mr Ramaphosa.

Since 1994, the ANC, a party popular for its active involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, has won majority seats and solely formed government in every election circle. 

However, the ANC’s failure to win majority seats in the national election held last Wednesday is compelling the party to form a government with opposition parties, as Mr Ramaphosa announced. 

This year’s election was adjudged to be South Africa’s most competitive, featuring 70 political parties and 28 million registered voters. 

Mr Ramaphosa’s ANC polled 40.21 per cent of the votes cast, a huge decline from the 57 per cent it polled in 2019. John Steenhuisn’s Democratic Alliance came second in the election, polling  22 per cent of the votes cast.

Newly formed former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe polled 15 per cent of the vote, displacing radical Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighter party, which polled nine per cent.

Shortly after the election, Mr Malema agreed his party, EFF, would work with the ANC. 

“If there is one party we can work with, it’s the ANC because when the ANC is comprised, they are not arrogant. You can work with them,” Mr Malema said.