South Africa : Coalition Government Unveiled

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has made public a new coalition government. The coalition made public on Sunday, June 30, 2024 comprises 32 cabinet ministers. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) got 20 ministerial positions, the opposition Democratic Alliance, which won 21.8 per cent of the vote in the recent elections, was given six of the 32 ministerial positions and the position of deputy finance minister. President Ramaphosa included eight parties in his cabinet, but the country’s two most radical political groups, Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) which had campaigned on expropriating land, and uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), run by former ANC President Jacob Zuma, were not included. 
A few hours after the announcement, the South Africa currency Rand immediately strengthened to about R18.01 to the dollar recovering from the R18.50 it had hit a few days earlier when it looked like the coalition talks with the DA might collapse. Fierce haggling between the two largest parties led to the DA accusing Ramaphosa of reneging on an offer to let it run the powerful trade and industry ministry, while the ANC in turn accused the DA leadership of high-handedness. But a late breakthrough emerged on Friday after John Steenhuisen, DA leader, accepted a compromise.  The rocky start to the coalition has raised fears that the government may not last. One senior ANC official told the FT tha...