What next for South Africa?

South Africa is set for a period of political turmoil followed by a new era of coalition rule after the African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority for the first time since apartheid ended 30 years ago.

With all the votes counted from Wednesday's election, the ANC still emerged as the largest party on 40%, although this was below its worst-case scenario and well down from the 57.5% it won at the previous election in 2019. 

It means its number of seats will drop from 230 to 159 when the 400-seat National Assembly next meets, with the pro-business Democratic Alliance (DA) picking up 87 seats. In third place was uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) – a new party named after the ANC's armed wing and led by former president Jacob Zuma – which took 58 seats, while the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a Marxist-Leninist party led by the ousted ANC youth leader Julius Malema, ended up with 39.

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The post-election political landscape is "fraught with consequences because the major parties have different visions for the country", said the BBC. "The outcome of what's expected to be turbulent coalition talks could decide between two very different directions for South Africa."

What did the commentators say?

The irony for the ANC is that it is "the country's liberation leaders" who are now "watching the democracy they ushered in after fighting apartheid undercut their 30 years of monopoly on power", said Sky News's Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir.

This may have been that democracy in action – as the president of South Africa and the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, alluded to when he declared "whether we like it or not, our people have spoken". But it is nevertheless a damning verdict "that implies the ANC alone cannot be trusted to deliver the dividends of democracy", said David Pilling in the Financial Times.

Years of low growth, record levels of unemployment – especially among the young – power cuts, violent crime, crumbling infrastructure and endemic corruption have contributed to a "haemorrhaging of support for the former liberation movement", said The Guardian. It leaves the ANC is in its "weakest position since it swept to power under Nelson Mandela in 1994".

Young people especially, many of whom did not experience apartheid, were "more willing than their parents to abandon the ANC, powered by concerns about their future", said the BBC.

On the face of it, "the election result is a tragedy" and "a new low" for the ANC, said Alexis Akwagyiram in The Guardian. But the outcome is nonetheless "good for the country" in a broader sense: "it shows that its democracy is giving citizens the ability to hold the government to account".

Another point of interest is that there were more than 50 parties on the ballot papers, said Pilling, which shows that "politics has fragmented", with much of that fragmentation "along identity lines". This is of note in a country that has, "for all its turbulent and divisive history", produced an electorate that "largely eschews radicalism".

Coalition government will give other groups the chance to "impose checks and balances on the ANC", said Akwagyiram. The ANC's "young liberation fighters became corrupt fat cats" and fresh blood and new ideas could be what is needed to "generate effective policies on key issues".

What next?

Under the constitution, the ANC has two weeks to form a coalition government before parliament is in session and the vote for the next president gets under way.

A tie-up with the DA "could be favoured by the more business-friendly wing of the ANC", said The Guardian. But such a coalition would "face criticisms from the many black South Africans who see the white-led DA as favouring the interests of white people". The next two biggest parties – Zuma's MK and the radical left EFF – may seem like more natural partners for the ANC, but are regarded either as too hostile or too erratic respectively to be trusted to form the next government.

Ramaphosa has called for rivals to find "common ground" and the ANC has so far insisted any demands for the president to stand down were a non-starter, but he is "now at the mercy of opposition parties and ex-comrades including former President Jacob Zuma", said Elbagir on Sky News.

In this "moment of vulnerability and political transition", Elbagir said, the threat of Zuma and his young party of ANC defectors is an "important consideration". South Africans are "braced for what risks being the most volatile political environment since mass bloodshed threatened to derail the first free vote 30 years ago", said The Times.

Ultimately, there is hope a coalition government will bring "more accountability and transparency", said the BBC, but also a wariness that "it might result in greater political instability and dysfunction".

Whichever path it chooses, "this is not the end of the road for the ANC", said Pilling. "But its era of dominance is over."