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Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter

PRESIDENT Mnangagwa has joined other world leaders in congratulating African National Congress (ANC) leader Mr Cyril Ramaphosa following the party’s electoral victory officially announced on Saturday night. 

ANC, which has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid 25 years ago, won the majority of the seats in that country’s sixth parliament with a 57,5 percent share of the national votes. 

The Democratic Alliance (DA) led Mr Mmusi Maimane remains the official opposition after it got 20,7 percent of the votes followed by former ANC youth leader Mr Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) which garnered 10,7 percent votes to secure a third place.

President Mnangagwa took to the micro-blogging site Twitter soon after the announcement of the elections results and congratulated his South African counterpart.

In his congratulatory message, President Mnangagwa said he was looking forward to working closely with Mr Ramaphosa in strengthening of relations between the two neighbouring countries whose strong ties date back to the period of the liberation struggle. 

“Congratulations Cde@ CyrilRamaphosa on your election victory. We wish you success as you build a strong and prosperous South Africa, and look forward to working closely together as we further strengthen the relationship between our two nations,” said President Mnangagwa.

The result gives ANC 230 seats in the 400-member parliament. 

Mr Ramaphosa’s inauguration as President of South Africa will take place on May 25.

South Africans last Wednesday cast their votes in the country’s sixth national plebiscite with a Zanu-PF observer team dispatched to the neighbouring country by President Mnangagwa describing the polls as peaceful. 

The 11-member Zanu-PF observer mission, chaired by Cde Patrick Chinamasa, castigated attempts to discredit the South African national elections in the wake of claims of double voting with some videos circulating on social media of some people committing the mischief.

The South African polls come 25 years after South Africa attained its independence in 1994 when the late Mr Nelson Mandela led the ANC to power in the country’s first multi racial vote that marked the end of apartheid. 

A record 48 political parties contested in last week’s polls.

Upon his assumption of office as the Head of State and Government in November 2017, President Mnangagwa’s first foreign visit was to South Africa. 

He met President Ramaphosa and former President Jacob Zuma as part of moves to deepen the economic ties between Harare and Pretoria.

Recently, Mr Ramaphosa took the campaign against illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe to the 49th edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. 

He said Zimbabwe was facing economic challenges which the world can assist in addressing if the sanctions are lifted. 

Zimbabwe has been labouring under illegal Western sanctions which have hurt the economy for about 20 years. − @mashnets