South Africa’s ruling alliance is unlikely to see out its current five-year term, with internal party dynamics set to test its cohesion, a senior politician who helped negotiate the coalition’s operating framework has warned.
The African National Congress (ANC) teamed up with the Democratic Alliance (DA), its biggest rival, and eight smaller parties last year after losing the parliamentary majority it had held for three decades.
The so-called government of national unity has weathered a series of crises, with its main members sparring over tax policy and the adoption of contentious land-expropriation, health insurance and education legislation.
“I’m not confident that it will last until 2029,” Helen Zille, the chairperson of the DA’s federal council, said of the GNU.
“There has got to be a change of ANC leadership before then, in 2027, and there are a whole lot of people in the ANC who don’t want it to last,” she said
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