S Africa's ANC looks for allies to form govt after losing majority

SOUTH Africa's ruling ANC faced a search for allies to help it form a new government on Saturday after it lost its threedecade-old absolute majority in a watershed election.

- 

With 99% of the votes from Wednesday's election counted, President Cyril Ramaphosa's African National Congress had only 40%, a catastrophic slump from the 57.5% it won in 2019. This marks a historic turning point for South Africa as the party has enjoyed an absolute majority since 1994, when liberation leader Nelson Mandela led the nation out of white-minority rule and into democracy.

The ANC must now either negotiate a coalition government, or at least persuade other parties to back Ramaphosa's re-election in parliament to allow him to form a minority government reliant on other parties for support to pass budgets and legislation.