ANC’s Nomvula Monkonyane and DA’S Helen Zille at the National Result Operation Centre (ROC) at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. (Gallo Images/Luba Lesolle)

• Coalition talks are expected to take centre stage this week.
• The ANC failed to secure an outright majority in last Wednesday’s general election.
• Find everything you need to know about the 2024 general elections on News24’s Election’s Hub.

The DA’s team, which will be negotiating for a coalition government after the watershed general elections, is expected to meet leaders of the ANC this week.

The official opposition says it is ready to put its differences aside.

Several sources in the DA have confirmed to News24 that the party is leaning towards exploring the options around a coalition government.

At this early point in time, the DA is exploring two options: form a coalition government with the ANC that will include Cabinet posts, or the DA takes the most senior positions in Parliament.

“It’s the only option to save SA from [former president Jacob] Zuma and [Julius] Malema. If you are listening to Malema’s demands for support from the ANC, this sounds like the best option. There is too much at stake to put narrow personal interests before those of the people of South Africa,” a source said.

READ | Coalition talks: Helen Zille, Tony Leon to lead DA’s negotiating team

Following last Wednesday’s dismal electoral result, the ANC has been forced into coalition talks with other parties.

For the first time in democratic South Africa, the ANC was brought below 50% of the vote, losing its parliamentary majority.

With the ANC only managing to get 40% of the vote, the DA, with 21.76%, could easily establish a coalition – for a joint 60% majority.

Several ANC leaders are not in favour of a coalition deal with the DA – and some have already reportedly announced their intention to quit should a deal like this go ahead.

During an address on Sunday, DA leader John Steenhuisen made it clear that his party would do anything to prevent the ANC from coalescing with the EFF and the Zuma-backed MK Party.

“These are the things contained in the manifestos of the EFF and MK Party. They amount to an all-out assault on the Constitution of our country. They will cause untold unemployment, misery and hardship for millions of people. Allowing this to happen will set South Africa’s flag and Constitution on fire, just like the DA warned during our campaign,” Steenhuisen said.

Another DA source confirmed that talks with the ANC are set to take place this week.

“It’s a fact, and it’s going to happen. There won’t be many concessions on both sides, and especially in provinces where the parties are in power,” the source said.

An ANC source confirmed that talks with the DA had been ongoing since last Wednesday’s election results.

“As a matter of fact, talks have been robust and, while it has been informal, there is a real chance of this coalition going ahead,” the source said.

DA national spokesperson Solly Malatsi said the negotiating team was given a mandate and they are expected to report back “sometime this week”.

Meanwhile, Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie said the party had met the ANC on Monday.

“Full transparency, we meeting ANC today [Monday] for coalition talks, we will not be arrogant in our demands but we will not accept any deal that doesn’t make mass deportation a reality. We will rather go fight in Parliament instead. We have a mandate and have no right to change it,” McKenzie posted on X.

Pieter Groenewald, leader of the Freedom Front Plus, said he was disappointed that the Multi-Party Charter could not get the support it needed.

“If the ANC and the DA go together in a coalition, then they don’t need us, as things currently stand. The Freedom Front Plus is set on preventing any sort of coalition between the ANC, the EFF and MK Party. We also do not believe that we have to have formal coalition agreements. We can just use our numbers to keep them [ANC, EFF and MK Party] out,” he said.

READ | ANC loses its stranglehold on Parliament after shedding 71 National Assembly seats

The DA got 21.76% of the vote in the general election – far off the mark to take the Multi-Party Charter forward as the biggest party.

On Saturday, Groenewald said he hoped the Phala Phala report into President Cyril Ramaphosa would be brought back to Parliament.

Should the ANC and DA agree to work together, it would place the DA in an untenable situation as it was outspoken with regard to Phala Phala.

The FF Plus and the DA are in coalition in several municipalities in the Western Cape – the bedrock of the DA’s support.

“We are not going to move away from those coalitions. What happens at a different sphere of government is not going to impact our coalitions elsewhere,” Groenewald said.