South Africa’s African National Congress has begun talks with rivals to form a government following its worst performance in an election since Nelson Mandela led it to power at the end of apartheid in 1994.
The ANC obtained 159 of the 400 seats in the National Assembly in the May 29 elections, the electoral commission announced on Sunday, a precipitous decline from the 230 seats President Cyril Ramaphosa’s party won five years ago.
The ANC’s slump to just about 40% of the vote comes after years of economic mismanagement and corruption saddled the country with one of the world’s highest unemployment rates and weak growth.