Alarm bells are ringing for South Africa’s coalition era

South Africa is navigating a new era of co-governance as national and various provincial executives engage in coalition arrangements, with negotiations already proving to be difficult.

While a Government of National Unity was quickly drawn up following the historic loss of the African National Congress (ANC) in the May elections, the weeks that followed saw tense negotiations between partners in the agreement.

President Cyril Ramaphosa—elected by the GNU—finally established his seventh administration cabinet on Sunday, 30 June, but the negotiation troubles filtered through to the country’s biggest province and economic hub, Gauteng.

This resulted in the ANC’s largest GNU partner, the Democratic Alliance, not forming part of government in the province—putting the future of the minority government in Gauteng in question, with risks of instability and political infighting high.

Coalition governance on a national and provincial level is a relatively new concept in South Africa, and the new reality will almost certainly face many teething problems as time goes on.

However, these arrangements are not unfamiliar territory in local government, and recent history with these arrangements may show what lies in store.

And it doesn’t look great, with petty politics superseding service delivery and, in many cases, leading to administrative failure.

Coalition nation

Several local municipalities in the country have a history of power-sharing agreements; however, this was pushed to another level after the past two local government elections.

Following the 2021 municipal elections, nearly one-third of local municipalities had no party with an outright majority (50% +1), indicating a shift in South Africa from a dominant party state to a more fragmented political system.

In these councils, coalition agreements have been required to form a viable government.

A recent analysis by The Outlier shows that of the country’s 213 local municipalities and metros (district municipalities are not included), 71 are in coalitions.

A majority of Gauteng’s municipalities were led by coalitions (89%) after the 2021 elections, as were the Western Cape’s (64%). This is closely followed by KwaZulu-Natal (48%).

However, the road to stable coalition governance has been rocky. Shortly after assuming office, many multi-party councils faced internal rifts.

“Cracks emerged just months after the multi-party councils assumed office – one would argue that it was bound to happen due to the ideological differences of the parties who have assumed governance,” said Khanya Ralarala from the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

These difficulties have subsequently negatively impacted the perception of coalitions overall.

For example, although the incumbent coalition has been relatively stable for the past year, Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub, saw a revolving door of executives—five administrations in 18 months.

This is not an isolated incident. Of the 71 local councils in coalition since 2021, 22 have had two mayors while 15 have had three or more mayors.

These administrations collapsed for various reasons; however, many have pointed to horse-trading and logrolling for political positions, which resulted in constant motions of no confidence against mayors and their executives.

The prioritisation of politics made service delivery take a back seat, with debates, meetings and council hearings about the composition dominating the council agenda.

“Unfortunately, [many] politicians are more concerned about staying in power and are willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power, even if it negatively affects public service provision,” wrote researchers Xolani Thusi and Nduduzo Ndebele.

“Many citizens and analysts have reservations about the prospect of a national coalition government because of political instability and poor service delivery that has occurred under previous coalition governments at local government level,” wrote Good Governance Africa analyst Stuart Morrison.

Another phenomenon that has emerged is that many councils have seen candidates with smaller representation rise to top positions in exchange for a fair distribution of executive roles.

For instance, this is evident in Johannesburg, where the mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, represents a party holding just 3 out of 270 seats in the council, while the speaker, Margaret Arnolds, hails from a party with only 2 seats.

This is largely due to friction between the ‘larger’ parties, where analysts attribute this phenomenon to larger parties’ reluctance to be seen as subordinate to one another.

“Despite the rise in local coalition governments after the 2016 local election, political parties have sometimes struggled to shift from being merely oppositional (and competing to remove the ANC from power) to being governance partners,” said Harrison.

There have been various reasons given for the failures of stability in some coalitions, especially in metros.

“These include weak leadership, inability to identify common ground, and political interference in administration – but one contributing factor not discussed enough is that some political parties struggle to be good-faith coalition partners,” said Morrison.

The national government has noticed these woes, which have come at the detriment of service delivery.

As a result, the Department of Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) has introduced two bills in hopes of guiding and stabilising coalitions, which are out for public comment.

A key one is the Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, 2024, which looks at introducing legally binding coalition agreements, a minimum threshold, rules around no-confidence votes, and a collective executive system.

“The Bill comes as a result of a public outcry for a framework, or guidelines or legislation given rise [of hung municipalities, and this increase] signalled the need to strengthen coalition governance to address challenges related to poor governance, service delivery and instability in municipal councils,” said COGTA.

However, various parts of the Bill, including introducing a threshold, have proved contentious among some analysts.

Regardless, while these laws could build a framework to guide coalitions, they could prove futile if other issues are not resolved.

“Coalition governance requires cooperation and compromise [and]…strong party leadership,” said Harrison.

“Strong leadership… enables the crafting of a comprehensive coalition framework to ensure accountability and oversight across all levels of government [to create] concrete guidelines and parameters for coalition partners to foster a political culture that works more optimally,” he added.

The reason why South Africa has seen such instability in coalitions up until now is attributed by Harrison to the lack of these key traits.

In response to calls for this, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the statement of intent signed by various parties ‘is a key measure for stability.’

“The Statement of Intent commits the signatories to a set of foundational principles that include respect for constitutionalism, accountability, transparency and community participation in government, evidence-based policy and decision-making, professionalisation of the public service integrity and good governance,” said Ramaphosa.

“We remain committed to consensus-building and to the representation of a broad range of interests and viewpoints within government,” he added.

Only time will tell how this will materialise.

Read: Who controls what: How government has been split among the ANC, DA and other parties