Update on the South African Parliamentary Elections

South Africa has formed a government of national unity, led by the African National Congress (ANC), which won the most votes and seats in the South African parliamentary election, but short of a majority the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, as two factions split off, one Marxist and one led by a former President convicted of corruption. The latter spinoff party had come in third, but refused to support the reelection of the current President who is of the ANC, while the centrist Democratic Alliance (DA), a pro-business party favored by whites, had finished second and the Marxists who wanted to nationalize banks and confiscate white-owned land without compensation came in fourth. The DA agreed to form a coalition government together with the fifth- and sixth-place finishers, the conservative Inkatha Freedom Party, which is backed by the Zulus, and a right-wing party supported by people of mixed race, supported the reelection of the President, and the selection of the parliamentary speaker and a deputy president (a member of the DA), and agreed on a common platform to address the serious problems facing South Africa I had posted about: low economic growth, poverty, unemployment, inflation, power outages, corruption and crime. International investors were pleased with the result. The ANC has been neutral in regard to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the DA opposes it.