By Hassan Islow
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa will announce his much anticipated Cabinet of the Government of National Unity (GNU) on Sunday night a month after elections, the presidency said in a statement.
Ramaphosa will address the nation at 9 p.m. local time (1900GMT).
‘‘The new National Executive will constitute the 7th Democratic Administration as a Government of National Unity comprising a diversity of political parties as an outcome of the national and provincial elections held on Wednesday, 29 May 2024,’’ the statement said.
Experts say the announcement will make history as the last time the country experienced a GNU was in 1994 when the global icon Nelson Mandela was president.
Ramaphosa’s African National Congress party, which had ruled South Africa without a coalition for the past three decades, lost its majority in the national and provincial elections on May 29.
The party reached a deal with 9 other political parties to form a GNU, but bargaining and lengthy negotiations for Cabinet positions among partners particularly the second largest party Democratic Alliance delayed the announcement process.
Members of the South African parliament reelected Cyril Ramaphosa, 71, on June 15 as president for a second term during the first sitting of the legislature.
He was officially sworn in as the seventh democratically elected president on June 19 at a colorful ceremony in the capital Pretoria attended by several heads of state and leaders of government.