The chair of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa says it can “talk to everybody and anybody”, as it looks likely to need a coalition partner after losing its parliamentary majority.
The once-dominant party of the late Nelson Mandela has seen its support slashed, receiving just over 40% in the landmark national election, with 99% of the votes counted.
The final results have not yet been formally declared by the independent electoral commission that ran the contest in the nation of 62 million people – but the ANC cannot pass 50%.
It means a flurry of negotiations are set to take place which are likely to be complicated.
Image: ANC supporters at a rally in Johannesburg. Pic: Reuters
The main opposition party, John Steenhuisen’s Democratic Alliance (DA), was on 21%, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), a new party led by former president Jacob Zuma, got 14%, while the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by ex-ANC youth leader Julius Malema, received 9%.
In total, more than 50 parties took part in the election, many of them with tiny shares of the vote.
The ANC, which freed the country from apartheid in the early 1990s, has won every previous national election by a landslide since the historic 1994 vote that ended white minority rule.
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Why has it all gone wrong for the ANC?
But over the last decade, its support has dwindled amid widespread poverty, a stagnating economy, rising unemployment, and power and water shortages.
The official unemployment rate in South Africa is among the highest in the world at 32%.
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The poverty disproportionately affects black people, who make up 80% of the population and have been the core of the ANC’s support for years.
Image: ANC supporters dance outside a polling station during the election. Pic: Reuters
There will now be an urgent focus on coalition talks as parliament needs to elect a president within 14 days of the final election results being officially declared.
A great sense of uncertainty in South Africa
This is definitely unchartered territory for South Africa, especially for the African National Congress (ANC) which has not been this unpopular since it led the country to freedom from white minority apartheid rule in 1994.
There is still a great sense of uncertainty, as parties turn their attention to now imminent coalition talks.
This will be the first time that South Africa sees a coalition government formed in its democratic history.
So who will the ANC, which still has the largest share of the votes, choose to team up with?
One option is the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by Julius Malema. He has revealed he would be willing to enter talks with the ANC, with the priority being forming a government as soon as possible.
The EFF is a very radical group economically, so there is some fear about the potentially destabilising impact of an ANC/EFF coalition, at a time when South Africa’s currency the rand is already quite vulnerable.
What is clear is that the ex-president Jacob Zuma, with his new MK party, has no intention of entering a coalition with his former ANC party.
Official results will come on Sunday after which coalition negotiations will intensify.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, of the ANC, is looking to be re-elected for a second and final term.
“We can talk to everybody and anybody,” said Gwede Mantashe, the ANC chair and current mines and energy minister, as he dodged a question from reporters about who the party was discussing a possible coalition deal with.
Image: President Cyril Ramaphosa is looking to be re-elected for a second and final term. Pic: AP
Image: ANC chair Gwede Mantashe. Pic: Reuters
Far-left leader Julius Malema, whose EFF party has got 9%, said: “We have achieved our mission… to bring the ANC below 50%. We want to humble the ANC.”
“We are going to negotiate with the ANC” for a possible coalition deal, he said, although that would not be quite enough to clinch a majority without including another party on the current count.
“The way to rescue South Africa is to break the ANC’s majority and we have done that,” said main opposition leader John Steenhuisen.
Meanwhile, MK party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndlela said: “We are willing to negotiate with the ANC, but not the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa.”
Image: EFF leader Julius Malema claims he is going to negotiate with the ANC. Pic: Reuters
The strong performance of Jacob Zuma’s MK party, especially in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, was one of the main reasons the ANC failed to secure a majority.
One option for the ANC could be a “government of national unity” involving a broad spectrum of many parties, rather than a formal coalition between a few, say analysts.
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But Mr Malema said the EFF was against that idea and preferred to be part of a coalition.
Nearly 28 million South Africans were registered to vote and turnout is expected to be around 60%, according to figures from the independent electoral commission.
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
Image: An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
Image: A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
Image: A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Image: Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Image: Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
Image: A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
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Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Image: A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Image: Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.