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President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to unveil South Africa’s coalition cabinet on Sunday, after a breakthrough in talks that gives the opposition Democratic Alliance up to six cabinet seats and the post of deputy finance minister.
The agreement came after fierce haggling between Ramaphosa’s African National Congress and the pro-market DA threatened to scupper coalition negotiations, and a day after Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) made an eleventh-hour bid to enter the government of national unity.
The odds of the coalition talks collapsing were at their highest on Friday after the DA said Ramaphosa had reneged on an offer to let it run the powerful trade and industry ministry and the ANC accused the DA leadership of high-handedness.
But a late breakthrough emerged after John Steenhuisen, DA leader, accepted a compromise offer of the agriculture portfolio. His party is likely to now run the ministries of home affairs, communications, basic education, public works, forestry and fisheries, and agriculture.
Helen Zille, DA chair, told the Financial Times that talks between the parties had come “very close” to falling apart. “We were on the brink of walking away. It was clear that the ANC wanted us to get just enough to keep them in power,” she said. “Our job is not to rescue the ANC, it’s to rescue South Africa.”
A “statement of intent” signed between the parties on June 14 said the president retained the prerogative to appoint ministers “in consultation” with the leaders of the parties.
Zille said the near breakdown of talks led the DA to question whether being in government would work at all. “We had to ask ourselves, if they are treating us this way now, what will it be like when we are in government?”
The inclusion of the pro-market DA has buoyed markets. But two radical parties — Malema’s EFF that campaigned on expropriating land and nationalising industry, and the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, run by former ANC president Jacob Zuma — made a late play to be included in the unity government.
Malema on Saturday attempted to convince the ANC to ditch the DA in favour of his party, accusing “counter revolutionary and imperialist forces” — essentially the business sector and foreign governments — of trying to institute a “soft coup” within the ANC.
Ramaphosa is expected to press ahead with the cabinet announcement on Sunday, citing the urgency of sticking to an agreed timetable.
Analysts said that fractious talks between the DA and the ANC had got the government of national unity off to a shaky start. One senior ANC official told the FT that the DA had attempted what he called a “snatch and grab” of plum positions.
The DA had been brought back to the table, the ANC official said, by powerful business donors who had been terrified of seeing the talks collapse. Speaking just before the breakthrough, he said: “The sensible part of the DA is under pressure to sit around the table and get on with the bloody thing”.
Negotiations exposed lack of trust on both sides. DA insiders described the ANC as “hollowed out and devoid of talent”, while an ANC member said the DA did not have a strong enough bench to fill the cabinet posts it was seeking.
“They’ve got a very weak team,” he said. He compared the two parties to companies in a merger with clashing corporate cultures.
Peter Attard Montalto, managing director of consultancy Krutham, said Ramaphosa should never have offered the trade, industry and competition portfolio to the DA if he couldn’t follow through. The president appears to have withdrawn the offer after pressure from his own party members and union affiliates.
“The markets will rally somewhat on the cabinet announcement and then the agreement on a policy platform, once the parties can reach that,” Attard Montalto said. “But the DA will struggle to make early jobs-related gains and are not in core economic lever positions.”
Attard Montalto said the ANC had already been moving in a pro-business direction in the past five years, using market solutions to help fix the country’s power utility Eskom, which has not had power blackouts for more than 90 days. But he said there were still risks of the unity government splintering owing to internal party friction, though probably not before local elections in 2026.
Velenkosini Hlabisa, leader of the Inkatha Freedom party, which is also part of the unity government, stressed the urgency of ironing out political differences, saying: “We cannot remain in a holding pattern when there is so much to be done.”
The IFP is tipped to win two cabinet seats in the unity government, which will include 10 parties.
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