CRACKS have appeared in South Africa’s new coalition government as the Democratic Alliance (DA) took the African National Congress (ANC) to court on Thursday over a pre-election speech in May given by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The court papers were submitted to the Electoral Court by the DA in May before it entered into a coalition with the ANC, but it decided to still go ahead with the case.

The DA asked the court to deduct 1 per cent of the vote received by the ANC in the May 29 national election and fine Ramaphosa, the ANC leader, the equivalent of £8,500 and his party £4,220, over what it argues was a presidential address that was used for election campaigning and amounted to an abuse of office.

The ANC labelled the DA’s legal action “frivolous and unwarranted.”

Mr Ramaphosa gave the speech three days before the election during which he highlighted what he said were ANC successes during its 30-year in government.

The DA said that election rules don’t allow him to campaign for the ANC when he speaks as the president.

The ANC lost its long-held majority in the historic election when it received just 40 per cent of the vote. That forced it to create a coalition government for the first time to run Africa’s most industrialised country.