STORY: South Africa's African National Congress may have said it's leaning towards forming a "government of national unity" - but there is a problem.

The other parties aren't exactly united.

The second largest party, for example, has said it won't work with some of the smaller ones.

On Wednesday (June 5), ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC had been talking to five parties.

"...because this is what the people of South Africa have said to us, that put together a multi-party arrangement that works for the benefit of South Africa.""

The ANC will have 159 seats in the new National Assembly.

The pro-business Democratic Alliance is on 87.

A surprisingly strong showing for the new MK Party, led by Jacob Zuma, gives it 58 while the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters, or EFF, got 39.

The socially conservative Inkatha Freedom Party has 17 and the far-right Patriotic Alliance is on 9.

That's too broad an array of ideologies for some.

Democratic Alliance spokesperson Werner Horn said their current decision was that they would not join parties such as MK, the EFF or Patriotic Alliance in government.

The DA has previously called an ANC-EFF alliance a 'doomsday' scenario.

The business sector would prefer a deal with the free-marketeer DA - which refutes allegations that it is a party of white privilege.

The DA advocates scrapping some of the ANC's Black empowerment policies on the basis that they haven't worked.

However, such a deal would likely be unpopular with the ANC's base.

ANC backers, including the South African Communist Party and the powerful COSATU trade union group, have voiced misgivings about a coalition with the DA.

The EFF's policies include nationalizing mines and banks and seizing land from white farmers.

They would be seen as a bad option by markets and the private sector.

But the party, led by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, is viewed more favorably by many ANC supporters.

An EFF spokesperson declined to comment on whether it was prepared to take part in a government of national unity.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Patriotic Alliance said it was open to joining any government that delivers on its main campaign promises - chief among them the "mass deportation of all illegal immigrants."

The ANC's Bhengu-Motsiri said an approach to Zuma's MK had been rebuffed.

The May 29 election saw the ANC lose its majority for the first time in three decades.

That was punishment from voters angry over persistent poverty, unemployment, crime, corruption and rolling power blackouts.

"They had the chance, they ruined it and now they've got no choice but to do it."

The ANC said the aim now was to unite the broadest range of sectors in society behind the future government and that the timescale for wrapping up talks over this tricky political puzzle was less than a week.