JOHANNESBURG: The African National Congress is leaning towards trying to form a government of national unity for South Africa, it said on Wednesday, but the second-largest party said it would not join a government that included some of its smaller rivals.

The ANC, which has run the country since Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the 1994 elections that marked the end of apartheid, lost its parliamentary majority in last week’s election for the first time in the democratic era.

Punished by voters over persistent poverty and joblessness, rampant crime, rolling power blackouts and corruption, the ANC is still the largest party but can no longer govern alone after the May 29 vote.

It has been talking to five parties, ranging from the free-marketeer Democratic Alliance (DA) to the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), its spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri told a press conference in Johannesburg.

“At this point in time the conversation is looking at the government of national unity because this is what the people of South Africa said to us,” she said, adding that the party’s National Executive Committee would discuss options on Thursday.

The ANC will have 159 seats out of 400 in the new National Assembly, while the DA will have 87. The populist uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), led by former president Jacob Zuma, will have 58 seats, the EFF 39, the socially conservative Inkatha Freedom Party 17 and the far-right Patriotic Alliance (PA) nine.

“If the (ANC’s) idea is also to extend an invitation to all parties above a certain threshold to serve in the executive, which would include MK, the EFF and the PA, our negotiating team will not be empowered to conclude such an arrangement,” said DA spokesperson Werner Horn.

“The current decision is that we will not join these parties in a government,” he said, adding that any change of position would have to be agreed by the party’s federal governing bodies.