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Transnational Thursday for June 13, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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So, transnational Thursday stories- South Africa has a coalition between the DA and the ANC which re-elected Cyril ramaphosa as president. Hopefully the DA is able to tamp down on ANC corruption and incompetence, but I wouldn’t hold out hope, and the finer details of the coalition agreement haven’t been released yet.

The problem here is that the ANC have almost all of the power because they have a free choice of coalition partner - they can work with the DA or MK or EFF plus 3 seats from small left-wing parties. MK's ask is that Ramaphosa resigns, which makes that the deal the ANC least wants to do, but if the DA asks for too much the ANC can work with EFF+ instead.

For unclear reasons, the ANC has invited any party who wants to join the coalition even through they only need the DA's votes (knowing that EFF and MK would say no) and the cabinet is expected to include IFP (the right-wing Zulu party) and Patriotic Alliance (Faragism for Coloureds) ministers.