Johannesburg –
Talks to forge South Africa’s post-election unity government will have to bring together parties with goals as contradictory as seizing white-owned farms and mines, abolishing black empowerment policies and tearing up the constitution.
How well the African National Congress (ANC) harmonizes these divergent and mutually hostile views will determine the government’s stability, its decision-making capacity and its policy priorities over the next five years.
It will also test Nelson Mandela’s 1994 aspiration for a “rainbow nation at peace with itself” as politicians try to deal with historic ethnic and racial animosities brought into stark relief by the May 29 elections.
