Johannesburg (EFE).- The opposition party Rise Mzansi (RISE) has announced that it has signed the agreement to form a Government of National Unity (GUN) in South Africa, bringing the number of parties favorable to the coalition Executive to nine.
“The national leadership collective decided that Rise Mzansi should be part of the GUN and the national dialogue to ensure that the aspirations and hopes of the people who elected us to serve are heard,” party leader Songezo Zibi said in a statement. .
In the general elections on May 29, this political force obtained 0.42% of the votes (two seats in the National Assembly, Lower House of Parliament).
More than 200 seats
The other parties in the coalition are the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the Democratic Alliance (AD), the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), GOOD, the Patriotic Alliance (AP), the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, the of Libertad Plus and the United Democratic Movement.
The alliance has 275 seats of the 400 that make up the National Assembly.
The leader of the ANC (center-left), Cyril Ramaphosa, was inaugurated this Wednesday for a second and final five-year term as president of South Africa, following the loss of the absolute majority by his party in the May 29 elections.
Ramaphosa elected president
The inauguration took place after a marathon first session of the National Assembly on the 14th, in which Ramaphosa, 71, was elected president by 283 votes.
Hours earlier, John Steenhuisen, leader of the Democratic Alliance (AD, liberal centre-right), until now the leading opposition force (87 seats) and, traditionally, representative of the country’s white minority, announced having reached an agreement with the ANC to form a “Government of national unity”.
The agreement put an end to the uncertainty unleashed after the ANC achieved 40.18% of the votes in the elections, which translate into 159 seats in the National Assembly, losing the comfortable position in power that it had occupied since the establishment. of democracy and the end of the racist system of ‘apartheid’ in 1994.
