Pressure on President Ramaphosa and the ANC following South African election results

South Africa’s president is under increasing pressure after leading the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to its worst electoral result in three decades and forcing power-sharing.

With most votes counted, the ANC received 40% of the votes, down from 58% in the last election.

That’s lower than the worst-case scenario of 45% the party had feared, analysts say.

The ANC has consistently enjoyed support rates of more than 50 percent since the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, when Nelson Mandela became president.

But support for the party has fallen sharply amid anger over corruption, unemployment and high crime.

One woman told the BBC that she was ending a 30-year record of voting for the ANC in favour of the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA), citing the high cost of living and frequent power outages.

“This is not a good result. I want this to go away from the government. Someone else needs to be given a chance,” she said.

The BBC understands that the final result will be announced at 6pm local time (5pm BST) on Sunday.

The ANC leadership has begun internal discussions to prepare for complex coalition talks.

The options are the DA, former president Jacob Zuma’s Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party or the extremist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

Both the EFF and MK advocate the confiscation of white-owned land and nationalisation of the country’s mines.

The Indian National Congress (MK) has said it is ready to work with the ANC, but not as long as Ramaphosa is in charge.

He replaced Zuma as president and ANC leader after a bitter power struggle in 2018.

MK supporters celebrated throughout the night in Durban, the party’s home base in KwaZulu-Natal province.

ANC chairman Gwede Mantashe said it was unlikely the ANC would form a coalition with the centre-right DA, which is currently in second place with 22% of the vote.

He said there needed to be “policy alignment” between the parties to form a coalition deal.

For the ANC, black empowerment policies, aimed at giving black people the right to participate in the economy after being excluded during the racist apartheid era, were “non-negotiable”.

He added that parties forming a coalition government must agree on the National Health Insurance (NHI) bill, which promises universal health coverage and was signed into law earlier this month.

The DA opposes both the NHI and the ANC’s black empowerment policies.

Although the ANC has been reluctant to cooperate with the DA, its leader John Steenhausen has not ruled out the idea.

But he said even if an alliance with the ANC were to take place, there would be some conditions that were non-negotiable.

“Respect for the law and the constitution, a social market economy that treats the private sector as a partner in the growth plan.”

“We will have zero tolerance for corruption and executive placements and will be relentlessly focused on economic policies that will create more jobs.”

Mr Steenhuisen also told the BBC that he would need to hold talks with his pre-election coalition partners before considering any negotiations.

However, he ruled out the EFF and MK Party as possible coalition partners.

“I don’t think instability is in the country’s best interest. A coalition between South Africa’s far-left party MK and the EFF will produce the same policies that destroyed Zimbabwe and Venezuela,” he said.

Another option would be to work with the EFF, led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema. The two parties currently form a coalition government that governs Johannesburg, the country’s largest city.

With a record 70 political parties and 11 independent candidates running, South Africans voted to elect a new parliament and nine provincial assemblies.

The DA struck a deal with 10 parties to form a coalition government if it won enough votes to oust the ANC from power.

However, this does not include the EFF or MK, which are needed to form a majority.

As the parties scrambled to form coalitions, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is leading the African Union’s election observer mission in South Africa, offered advice on how to form a coalition.

He said the coalition government needed to focus on areas of agreement rather than differences.

“I wish them nothing but the best and I hope that the leadership will take this decision of the people in a positive way,” he said.

Additional reporting by Ann Soy and Anthony Irungu