South Africa’s ANC wants a national unity government: What is it?

The ruling ANC is avoiding a coalition government with any one opposition group as it faces its toughest challenge yet.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has said it wants to form a national unity government with major opposition parties after it lost its majority in general elections last week for the first time since the country’s first post-apartheid elections 30 years ago.

The plan was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday, after days of negotiations within the ANC and between major parties. It comes after speculation over whether the ANC might try to form a grand coalition government with its nearest political rival, the Democratic Alliance, to control parliament, or whether it would try and work with the uMKhonto we Sizwe of former President Jacob Zuma, whose gains in the election came at the direct cost of the ANC.

Either of those arrangements could have forced the ANC to become too dependent on a single rival party, analysts have told Al Jazeera. By going for a broad, multiparty coalition, the ANC could diffuse that risk.

The ANC now has a constitutional deadline of June 18 to negotiate the specifics of the national unity government.

But what is a national unity government, what might it look like and has South Africa and other nations tried it before?