ANC needs an ally to govern South Africa and it has three options, but...

South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), is facing an unprecedented situation.

For the first time since 1994 when South Africa entered the post-apartheid era, the ANC has lost parliamentary majority in elections.

While the ANC can still form the government, it can only do so if it finds allies to form a coalition government. While the ANC and other parties have said that they are exploring their options and are open to coalitions, no announcements of alliances have so far been made.

As per the South Africa’s constitution, the National Assembly (NA) has to convene within two weeks. The first job of the new NA will be to elect a new president for the country. Here are three situations that the ANC and South Africa may find itself in the upcoming days.

What do we know of South Africa’s election results?

In the 400-member NA, the ANC has won just 159 seats, according to the AFP news agency.

While the ANC’s tally is much below the majority mark of 201, it has still emerged as the single-largest party.

The ANC is followed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) party with 87 seats, the MK party with 58 seats, and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party with 39 seats, as per the agency.

While the DA is a centre-right party that favours free-marker, the EEF and MK are leftist parties that support the nationalisation of mines and banks and call for the redistribution of land in the country.

The MK is the party of Jacob Zuma, the former President of South Africa who formerly belonged to the ANC. He is plagued by corruption allegations against him. He has rejected the election results.

Is South Africa going to have a coalition government?

Of the three ways that the South African polity can now move, a coalition government in which ANC is supported by one of the other parties looks most likely. ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula has told AFP that the party was having “exploratory discussions at the moment” about a coalition government.

“We talk to everybody,” said Mbalula to the agency.

Mbalula further said the party was hoping to achieve a deal “as fast as we can”.

DA leader John Steenhuisen has said that he is open to being part of a coalition with the ANC. The news agency reported him as saying that he was willing to be part of even a “Doomsday Coalition” government between the ANC, MK, and the EFF.

As mentioned earlier, these parties are vastly different in ideology. Steenhuisen has been quoted as saying that the MK and EFF’s electoral promises of judicial interference and nationalisation was “all-out assault on the constitution of our country”.

Reuters on Monday quoted ANC’s Mbalula as saying that the party “would work with anyone who wants to work with us but not with a cap in the hand.”

The ANC has formed a working committee of 27 party officials that would meet on Tuesday to prepare a presentation about the party’s options, as per the agency. This presentation would be presented to the National Executive Committee of the party that would met on Wednesday.

The agency reported that analysts have said that a deal between the ANC and the DA looked the likeliest outcome of coalition negotiations.

Unity government or ANC’s minority rule?

While an ANC-DA alliance looks the likeliest, there are also two other possibilities.

If a coalition cannot be worked out, or if the ANC is not willing to enter into a coalition for some reason, then it can also attempt at running a minority government. In such a government, the ANC will form the government without majority and would rely on other parties on legislative agenda. This may lead to concessions as other parties would only vote in favour of ANC in the parliament if their demands and concerns are accommodated by the ANC.

The third scenario could be of a national unity government where all parties would come together to form the government. Reuters, however, noted that such an outcome was “seen as potentially unstable and prone to gridlock”.