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Africa is shell-shocked after South Africa’s long governing and liberation party, African National Congress (ANA), lost its parliamentary majority in the May 29, 2024 election. The mainly white-led Democratic Alliance (DA) has a real chance to coble a rival coalition that can push the former liberation party into the opposition or hew a unity government to co-govern with the anti-apartheid party facing an existential challenge from its former compatriots.

The ANC has fallen a dangerous mix of elite fragmentation, the strident rise of ethnic populism and the collapse of the nationalist consensus in Africa’s most industrialized country and $400 billion economic powerhouse. ANC’s fall from grace casts a dark shadow over other regional powers like Kenya.

In the 2024 elections, the ANC has received only 40.18 percent, (6.46million votes) which translates to 159 seats in parliament. The Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition party, which received the second-highest number of votes (21.81 percent) 3.5 million votes followed by the MK party (14.58 percent) 2.34 million votes, and EFF (9.52 percent), 1.53 million votes. Because it needs 201 seats to form a government, it has to clinch a deal for a negotiated coalition to govern.