JOHANNESBURG: Plans by South Africa’s ANC to form a government of national unity after last week’s general election met a cool reception on Friday, with some potential partners reserving judgment or appearing hostile to the idea.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress won 40 percent of the vote — its lowest score ever — and for the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994 it needs the backing of other groups to govern.
The new parliament is to meet in about 10 days and one of its first tasks will be to elect a president to form a new government.
After marathon ANC talks on Thursday, Ramaphosa said the party had decided to try to band together with a broad group of opposition parties, ranging from the far right to the hard left.
But Julius Malema, leader of the radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters seemed unwilling to join hands with rivals holding radically different political views.
“We can’t share power with the enemy,” Malema wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“You can’t dictate the way forward as if you have won elections. We are not desperate for anything, ours is a generational mission.”
The ANC will have 159 members in the 400-seat National Assembly, down from 230 in 2019.
Ramaphosa said negotiators already held talks with parties including EFF, the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA) and the anti-immigrant Patriotic Alliance (PA).
The EFF, which secured 39 lawmakers supporting land redistribution and the nationalization of key economic sectors, is ideologically at odds with the DA, which won 87 seats with a liberal, free-market agenda.
Yet, analyst Sandile Swana noted the two parties have cooperated in the past and Malema’s outburst might be tactical.
“To get anything out of negotiations you have to demand the maximum upfront. It’s a starting position,” he said.
A broad coalition could work if it focused “on the technocratic aspects rather than the ideological aspects,” he added.
South Africa has had a government of national unity before.
The first democratic administration led by late anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela included the ANC and its bitter rivals the National Party and the IFP.
On Friday, the IFP, which won 17 seats last week, said that “in principle” it was not averse to a repeat.
“However, the devil is in the details, which will become clearer in the coming days thus enabling the IFP to make a well-considered decision,” said spokesman Mkhuleko Hlengwa.
PA spokesman Charles Cilliers similarly told AFP that the party, which won nine seats, retained “an open mind.” “We will consider the ANC’s proposal and then make a decision,” he said.
Others, like the right-wing ActionSA party, had already said they had no interest in working with the ANC and would remain in opposition.
The DA is yet to comment on the matter.
South African parties cool toward ANC’s broad coalition plan
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South African parties cool toward ANC’s broad coalition plan
WHO appeals for $1 bn for world’s worst health crises in 2026
- The UN health agency estimated 239 million people would need urgent humanitarian assistance this year and the money would keep essential health services going
GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Tuesday appealed for $1 billion to tackle health crises this year across the world’s 36 most severe emergencies, including in Gaza, Sudan, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The UN health agency estimated 239 million people would need urgent humanitarian assistance this year and the money would keep essential health services going.
WHO health emergencies chief Chikwe Ihekweazu told reporters in Geneva: “A quarter of a billion people are living through humanitarian crises that strip away the most basic protections: safety, shelter and access to health care.
“In these settings, health needs are surging, whether due to injuries, disease outbreaks, malnutrition or untreated chronic diseases,” he warned.
“Yet access to care is shrinking.”
The agency’s emergency request was significantly lower than in recent years, given the global funding crunch for aid operations.
Washington, traditionally the UN health agency’s biggest donor, has slashed foreign aid spending under President Donald Trump, who on his first day back in office in January 2025 handed the WHO his country’s one-year withdrawal notice.
Last year, WHO had appealed for $1.5 billion but Ihekweazu said that only $900 million was ultimately made available.
Unfortunately, he said, the agency had been “recognizing ... that the appetite for resource mobilization is much smaller than it was in previous years.”
“That’s one of the reasons that we’ve calibrated our ask a little bit more toward what is available realistically, understanding the situation around the world, the constraints that many countries have,” he said.
The WHO said in 2026 it was “hyper-prioritising the highest-impact services and scaling back lower?impact activities to maximize lives saved.”
Last year, global funding cuts forced 6,700 health facilities across 22 humanitarian settings to either close or reduce services, “cutting 53 million people off from health care.” Ihekweazu said.
“Families living on the edge face impossible decisions, such as whether to buy food or medicine,” he added, stressing that “people should never have to make these choices.”
“This is why today we are appealing to the better sense of countries, and of people, and asking them to invest in a healthier, safer world.”
