"This has taken on a much more severe outcome for the ANC than was expected"
SA UK Bilateral Research Professor in Political Theory at Wits and Cambridge Lawrence Hamilton speaks to CGTN Europe about the results of the 2024 election in South Africa.
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00:00 Now Lawrence Hamilton is Professor of Political Studies at the University of
00:03 Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He's currently in the UK and joins us now live.
00:07 Lawrence, thanks very much indeed for joining us. First of all, you know, I mean South Africa's had
00:13 a kind of coalition government experience before, but is this a crisis or was it inevitable that
00:18 the ANC would eventually start to lose its vote share? Good evening Andrew and good evening to
00:25 your viewers. No, it's an absolutely historic result. It's an historic election. I think it
00:32 was inevitable over time, but this has taken on a very different look and a much
00:40 more severe outcome for the ruling ANC than was expected. I think many people were putting
00:46 their loss down to 50%, 45% around there, but the Mkontawe Seeswere, the new party, only
00:55 five or six months old, scooped 14.59% as things stand, and that is essentially a fraction
01:03 of the ANC under Zuma that has really, really undermined the ANC's majority support and thrown
01:11 a very serious catamaran for pigeons here. Yeah, I understand that the vote in favour of Zuma's new
01:17 party was pretty concentrated in one particular geographical area, but now we have police being
01:23 deployed, so clearly there's tension in the country which you were alluding to, and there's
01:27 this disenfranchised figure in Jacob Zuma looking to get back into politics. So what's likely to
01:32 happen now, do you think? Well, so I think following some comments yesterday evening,
01:40 Jacob Zuma has threatened, not necessarily violence, but at least warned that he shouldn't
01:48 be provoked, and there have been some allegations thrown around about the IEC not running matters as
01:54 they should. But I think effectively what's going on here is that there is a jostle for power,
02:00 and the ANC literally, as we speak, Cyril Ramaphosa is starting his announcement at the IEC,
02:10 the election results announcement, and what will probably take place if there's no outbreak of any
02:21 form of violence is that the ANC will come together, it's already come together in various
02:28 forms, and it will open up invitations to form a coalition government, either with the Democratic
02:36 Alliance, which is a right-leaning party, or with the EFF and some other smaller parties,
02:45 that's the Economic Freedom Front, and some other smaller parties. The chance of any relationship
02:51 between Mkontawe Sizwe and the ANC is very slight indeed, just to correct your correspondent there,
02:57 I don't think that is a possibility at all. So those are the two main options really open to
03:03 the ANC. There is the possibility of creating some kind of unity government or government of
03:10 national unity to get through this crisis of some kind or other, but my guess is that it'll go one
03:18 way or the other, rather than that route. In other words, it'll go with the DA or with more left
03:26 leaning, more populist groups like the EFF. Lawrence Hamilton, thanks very much indeed
03:32 for joining us tonight on CGTN.