President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks after the official announcement of the results of South Africa's general elections at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) National Results Operations Centre at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand on June 2, 2024. (Photo: Michelle Spatali/AFP via Getty Images)
The announcement of the final election results on Sunday night set off a 14-day constitutional countdown for Congress to convene to elect a new president and speaker of the House of Representatives.
Article 86(1) provides that at its first meeting after the election, Parliament “shall elect from among its members a woman or a man as President.”
Chief Justice Raymond Zondo will set and gazette the date for this first meeting, where newly elected members of Parliament will take their oath before electing a new Speaker of the House of Representatives, who will then preside over the election of a Deputy Speaker.
A new speaker will then be elected by the members and the Chief Justice will again preside over this part of the hearing.
Article 51 stipulates that this session must take place on a date to be determined by the Constitutional Court, but not later than two weeks after the final results have been announced.
Coalition talks are underway amid a dramatic shift in the political landscape following the loss of the ANC's long-held majority, but with ideological battles and personal motivations swirling, it would be unwise to assume an agreement is certain within two weeks.
Strictly speaking, this is not an issue as the voting procedure set out in Part A of the Third Schedule to the Constitution provides for a process of elimination whereby members vote successively until one candidate receives a majority of the votes.
The process would simply be longer and more complicated than if an agreement on a presidential nominee were reached between the parties with a clear majority in the House of Representatives.
All candidates must be nominated by a form signed by two members of parliament, after which voting will take place by secret ballot.
Clause 7 of the schedule states that “if no candidate receives a majority of the votes, the candidate receiving the fewest votes shall be eliminated and further voting shall be held for the remaining candidates.”
“This process must be repeated until a candidate receives a majority of the votes.”
It is possible that two or more candidates may each receive the minimum number of votes, in which case “they must vote separately for each candidate and then as many times as necessary to determine which candidates to eliminate.”
The law also provides that if only two candidates are nominated, or if after applying the elimination procedure only two candidates remain and both receive an equal number of votes, a new election must be held within seven days.
If a coalition agreement is reached before the session begins and only one candidate is agreed upon, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will appoint that person as president.
The new president will no longer be a member of Parliament and, by law, must be sworn in at an inauguration ceremony within five days.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is not expected to step down following the ANC's loss of its parliamentary majority and will therefore be the party's presidential candidate, barring a rebellion within the party.
Jacob Zuma's uMKhonto weSizwe party cannot nominate the former president because he is serving a 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court and has been declared ineligible to stand as a member of Parliament.
The party is challenging the disqualification, which was confirmed by the Constitutional Court nine days before the election, and may well challenge it in the first session of the National Assembly.
Parliament does not currently exist, having ceased to function on the eve of the election, but the country will not be rudderless until the convening ceremony takes place.
However, Article 94 of the Constitution provides that if national elections are held, the president, vice president, ministers and deputy ministers “retain the ability to exercise their functions until the person elected president by the next parliament takes office.”
Parliament issued a statement on Sunday saying Zondo had gazetted the rules for the first sitting of the National Assembly, in accordance with the provisions of the constitution, but his office said the rules would only be published by mid-week, once the election results were formally handed over to him.
