South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has lost its majority in the country’s election this week for the first time since the end of apartheid, in a major setback for the party that led the country’s liberation from white minority rule.
The ANC, which has led the country since 1994, has started closed-door negotiations with other parties to try and stitch together a governing coalition — something it had never had to do until now. Yet analysts say that the party’s losses and the pressures it will confront from potential alliance partners have also cast a cloud over the future of the man the ANC had hoped would lead it into another term in office: President Cyril Ramaphosa.
