San Francisco Frontiers - South Africa's president to lay out new government plans

Ramaphosa, 71, will address a joint sitting of the two Houses in Cape Town at around 7:00 pm (1700 GMT) after a ceremony including a display of military pageantry and a 21-gun salute.

"This (address) is truly historic as it is taking place under unique, complex, and testing political conditions," parliament speaker Thoko Didiza told journalists Wednesday.

Damaged by graft scandals and a poor economic record, Ramaphosa's African National Congress (ANC) lost its absolute parliamentary majority for the first time in three decades in a May 29 vote, where it won only 40 percent.

The result reflected deepening disillusionment since democracy in 1994, with unemployment at a record 33 percent, poverty and crime rates high, and access to basic services such as water and electricity erratic.

Weeks after the vote, the ANC struck an unprecedented power-sharing deal with 10 other parties, aligning itself with the centre-right in a move some analysts said would assure investors.

It retained 20 cabinet positions, including foreign affairs, finance, defence, justice and police.

Its largest coalition partner and long-time critic, the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA), has six portfolios, including agriculture, public works and communication.

Six other ministries were distributed among the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party, anti-immigration Patriotic Alliance, right-wing Afrikaans party Freedom-Front Plus and other smaller parties.

- Skeletons and goodwill -

The cabinet held its first meeting over the weekend in a cordial atmosphere, but observers say trouble might lay ahead.

"There is a momentum of goodwill that seems to have been built up in the first few weeks of the government of national unity. The question is whether this momentum is sustainable," political analyst Daniel Silke told AFP.

"It's one thing to create the new government... and dish out all the portfolios. It's quite another thing to find consensus in policy and in execution of policy."

From foreign policy to a national health reform dear to the left-leaning ANC but loathed by the DA, there is much the coalition partners disagree on.

Ramaphosa is likely to focus his address on uncontroversial policies such as a planned reform to professionalise the corruption-afflicted public service, said William Gumede, a governance professor at the University of the Witwatersrand.

DA leader John Steenhuisen said on Wednesday Ramaphosa was expected to outline a "reform agenda", which "in many cases, is aligned with DA policy when it comes to unlocking investment and economic growth and building a capable state."

In parliament, the government is likely to face a vociferous opposition from the leftists uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) and Economic Freedom Fighters parties, which came in third and fourth in May respectively.

Led by former president Jacob Zuma, the MK came out of nowhere to win more than 14 percent of the vote and could prove a thorn in the side of the ANC, from which it drew many disillusioned cadres, said Gumede.

As some MK MPs were once senior ANC politicians, "they know where the skeletons are buried," he said.

Y.Gomez--SFF