On Friday, South Africa’s Parliament elected Cyril Ramaphosa as President of the Republic for a second term, with 283 votes from the National Assembly. The election was held despite the African National Congress (ANC) losing its absolute majority in the National Assembly. Judge Raymond Zondo presided over the session and declared Ramaphosa as the duly elected president after he won by a wide margin over Julius Malema, candidate of the radical leftist EFF party.
Following the election, various parties, including the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Party, announced an agreement to form a coalition government with the ANC and Democratic Alliance. The ANC still holds a majority with 159 seats in Parliament while the Democratic Alliance has 87 seats. Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated Ramaphosa on his re-election through China’s Xinhua News Agency.
Ramaphosa’s ruling ANC received only 40 percent of the vote in South Africa’s recent legislative elections, marking their first loss since democracy was established in 1994. After being elected, Ramaphosa appointed his cabinet ministers in a secret ballot.
