South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the main opposition party, Democratic Alliance (DA), have reached a deal to form a government of national unity (GNU), local media reported on Friday.
According to South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the GNU will also include the Patriotic Alliance (PA) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) while the DA will get the post of the deputy speaker of the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times, South Africa’s biggest Sunday newspaper, reported that the current South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, will be elected with the support of the DA on Friday afternoon.
The parties struck a deal shortly after 10 a.m. on Friday, during the first sitting of the National Assembly, said a report published on the newspaper’s website.
“It’s done. We have a deal,” the report quoted an anonymous senior DA member of parliament as saying.
According to the report, sources said it had been agreed that the DA will support Ramaphosa’s election as president, with agriculture minister Thoko Didiza as speaker, and the ANC will support the election of a DA deputy speaker.
“At about 10:30 a.m., the DA had not decided on the name of its candidate, but a source indicated it was likely to be Annelie Lotriet, the party’s deputy chief whip,” it said. “The ANC’s Mdumiseni Ntuli is touted as the incoming chief whip.”
The first sitting of the National Assembly, lower house of parliament, is being held on Friday to elect the speaker, deputy speaker and president for the next five years.
This follows the country’s 2024 general elections on May 29 where members of the national and provincial legislatures were elected.
In the elections, ANC secured 159 out of 400 seats in the National Assembly. However, for the first time, the ruling party fell below the 50 percent needed to maintain its 30-year-old unchallenged majority in the National Assembly.
