Introduction
Given the spectacular failure of some coalitions at the local government level, particularly in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, there is understandably a fear that the instability of coalitions at the municipal level will be replicated at provincial and national levels when the 29 May 2024 elections usher in coalitions in these spheres.
Nevertheless, the big question is whether new laws should be introduced to govern coalition governments to prevent the replication of municipal instability at provincial and national government levels in the coming coalition era. There are no formalised set guidelines for forming coalition governments, how they should function and engage with the public service and the public (SALGA 2021).
New coalition governance laws, frameworks, and regulations, if proposed, will have to be carefully considered so they do not undermine democratic representation, flout the Constitution, and cause even more instability. New coalition laws, however well-intended and crafted, on their own, will not be a silver bullet solution to prevent instability of coalition governments.
In fact, new laws, policies, and regulations, as we have seen in other areas, are not enough to compel governing leaders to comply with good governance prescripts. Therefore, there needs to be a combination of new laws with a governance culture change in South Africa's politics and public administration.
Coalitions fail not because the model of coalition government is flawed
In Africa, coalition governments have been the most successful form of leadership compared to liberation or independence movements, as well as one-party, military, or dictatorial governments. In the post-independence period in Africa, coalition governments in countries such as Mauritius and Cape Verde, have produced the highest economic growth rates, inclusive development, and peace.
In the post-Second World War period in many mature democracies such as Germany, Switzerland, and Finland; as well as in developing countries such as Brazil - coalition governments, have produced stability, economic prosperity, and rapid industrialisation.
South Africa has had many "hung" councils since 1994, with no instability. Currently, there are 32 "hung councils" in the country. The rise of instability at the municipal level is because no parties have received an overall electoral victory and broken out from the 2016 municipal elections onwards (Stofile 2024). Coalitions have been successful in national, provincial, and local government since 1994. Coalitions have worked even if the partners had different ideological outlooks, policies, and stances.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela presided over a Government of National Unity, a form of a coalition government, to promote reconciliation, inclusiveness, and participation when he included all the other major opposition parties in government, including the National Party, the former governing party, even though the ANC won the 1994 elections with a two-thirds majority (Gumede 2005). The GNU of Nelson Mandela was a grand coalition, bridging deep divides between political, racial and ideological groups that have historically fought against each other (Gumede 2005).
Between 1994 and 1999, there was a provincial government of national unity between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in KwaZulu-Natal. There was a provincial coalition between the Democratic Alliance (DA) and opposition parties in the Western Cape between 2009 and 2014 and a city coalition between the DA and opposition parties in Cape Town between 2006 and 2011.
Despite the public failures of some of the big metro coalitions - especially Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, municipal coalitions are generally well-governed (Stofile 2024; Masondo 2024). The big metros' failures generally receive outsized, sensational coverage, while the successes often go unreported.
South Africa also has a rich history of issue-based civil society coalitions at national and local levels during the apartheid-era with coalitions to fight apartheid or in the democratic-era, with coalitions against corruption, or for a Basic Income Grant.
To start with, there must be a greater society-wide embrace of political coalition governance as a credible form of governance for the country. There have been deliberate attacks on coalition government as a form of governance, either out of ignorance or to sway voters not to vote for smaller parties. Such misguided attacks wrongly create public sentiment against coalition governments.
How to oppose or hold a coalition government accountable is often poorly understood. Some South African political leaders wrongly believe that opposing a governing opposition-led government means collapsing it, which is not the case. Some parties at local level opposing local government coalitions often deliberately plot to bring down the government, rather than hold them accountable.
What kind of coalition laws should be considered?
What kind of coalition laws, if considered, will be appropriate to govern coalition governments in South Africa? So far, government have proposed three key proposals to prevent parties shifting allegiances - on superficial or patronage grounds, rather than principle, in coalitions at municipal level, which often causes the collapse of councils.
There have been suggestions to introduce a minimum threshold of votes for the admission of a party into a coalition government to prevent instability in hung councils when no party wins an outright majority, and coalitions must be formed. The problem is, introducing minimum thresholds of votes, may be not only unconstitutional, but will undermine democratic representation and may not even bring stability when implemented.
Another proposal is placing limits on motions of no confidence against a mayor of a council or metro - and presumably against a Premier and President in the new provincial and national coalitions. A third suggestion proposes that the party with the most votes in a coalition should also lead the municipality, provincial or national government.
All three core proposals not only undermine democracy, but they will not solve the instability caused by parties deliberately collapsing coalition governments. Again, the proposals represent an incidence where the government tackles the symptoms of the problem with a wrong new law, and not the root causes of it, causing the problem to continue, but introducing new problems with an ill-conceived new law.
The minimum threshold proposal, which restricts the admission of smaller parties into governing coalitions based on their votes, undermines the Constitution, which makes provisions for multiple parties to be represented - and for all votes to be counted. Such a law would exclude parties and their votes when it falls under the minimum threshold.
The right of an opposition party to introduce a no-confidence vote against a sitting government or leader is a critical accountability mechanism in a parliamentary democracy - and should not be limited. The whole idea of a coalition is that a competent leader of a smaller party, could also become the leader of the government, with the support of larger coalition parties. Laws which propose the party with the most votes in a coalition should lead the municipality, provincial or national government are therefore not good laws.
Currently, parties have 14 days to form a coalition government after an election. This is certainly not enough time to form an effective coalition. It will be critical that the time period to form coalition governments is extended to at least 30 days. This will allow parties to have more time to build stronger coalitions.
A key part of a new governance framework must be to give the public service the power to continue with government while coalitions are built or during transitions from one government to another. For example, the public service accounting officer must be given the power to set a transitional or interim budget, make key administrative decisions and appointments.
Coalition legal frameworks - examples from elsewhere
In countries such as Turkey, where there are laws setting minimum thresholds for small parties to participate in coalitions, it has proved to be controversial, often excluding smaller parties - and their voters from democratic participation while increasing the powers of the major parties. In short, minimum threshold laws exclude the voices of smaller parties and their constituencies, increase the powers of major parties, and therefore undermine democracy.
In Turkey, a party needs to secure more than 7% of the vote nationwide to become a member of a governing coalition whose collective vote is above the minimum threshold. Parties may therefore secure the most votes, but because they did not achieve the minimum threshold, do not secure elected representatives. Therefore, parties that secure the minimum threshold get more places, because those who fall below the 7% threshold also lose their votes.
In the 2002 elections, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 34.28% of the vote but two-thirds of the seats. The minimum threshold requirement levels in Turkey do not apply to independent candidates. The law was changed in 2018 to allow for parties in a formal coalition to use the aggregate of their vote to be used. This meant that individual parties that are part of a coalition which did not make the minimum threshold, can get into power with their coalition partners if the combined average of the coalition partners were above the threshold.
If coalition laws are going to be explored, it is better to look at variations of minority governments, in which governments may continue with agreements of cooperation on a case-by-case basis with other political parties they are not in a formal coalition with - to ensure stability. In a minority government, a political party or coalition does not have a majority. Policies can be adopted under such minority government arrangements with the support of other members whom they are not in coalition with.
Sweden and Canada, for example, have an arrangement in which parties could govern with loose agreements with other parties they may not be in coalition with. In Sweden and Canada, a party or coalition can strike such agreement, in the absence of a coalition partner, to allow the government to continue in power as a minority.
Fostering a democratic coalition culture
South Africa has so far been unable to foster a coalition governance culture - which includes parties and leaders making compromises for the greater good of public service delivery, leadership maturity that rises above ego, pettiness and party-interest while ensuring accountability.
Coalition governments have failed in many cases in South Africa because dominant parties are not making enough compromises, smaller parties are often made to feel excluded and coalition pacts are wrongly based on agreeing first on the government positions or contracts each partner receives, rather than on agreeing on a joint policy program before.
In many coalitions, the basis of the coalition partnership, is allocating government positions and contracts to coalition partners; they often 'own' these positions, only appointing their 'own' members and supporters, and implementing their 'own' policies.
Many of the local government coalitions do not have dispute resolution mechanisms - meaning that when there is a conflict among partners, there is no prescribed way to deal with it. It is critical that all coalitions must have credible dispute-resolution mechanisms.
There is very little transparency from coalition partners about the details of coalition agreements. Parties in most cases do not provide information about agreements to their party structures and members - let alone ballot their structures on this. Party leaders are even less inclined to provide information about coalition agreements to voters. Parties rarely publish coalition agreements. It is critical that coalition governments make coalition agreements public.
"For reasons best known by coalition partners, coalition agreements have generally not been made public. It is our considered view that this may be a key contributing factor to why coalitions are so unstable," according to Bheke Stofile (2022), the president of the South African Local Government Association.
"Publishing the coalition agreement can work in favour of coalition stability. It is no secret that, in the past, coalition partners did not hesitate to violate coalition agreements. The lack of transparency surrounding coalition agreements made this easy: the public had no knowledge of the commitments made by the coalition partners, so there was no fear of an electoral backlash when one of the partners opted out" (Stofile 2022).
Stofile said: "However if the public is aware of the contents of the coalition agreement, it will be more difficult for a coalition partner to violate the agreement. The public will know that this political party or councillor reneged on a commitment it signed."
Professionalising the public service
Effective coalition governance cannot occur until South Africa has a professional public service. Unsurprisingly, in countries with workable coalition governments, the government continues to run even when coalition governments are still cobbled together. And in countries like South Africa, with unprofessional public services, when coalitions fail, service delivery also breaks down.
South Africa's mostly unprofessional public service does not support effective coalition governance. Because the South African state, particularly at the municipal level, has been hollowed out by corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence, it means that if a coalition collapses at the local level, public services often also collapse. In many mature democracies, the public service is a professional one. And if coalitions collapse in mature democracies, the business of government continues uninterrupted.
There is often no firewall between the public administration and governing political parties. Party leaders often meddle in public administration functions (Stofile 2024; Masondo 2024). Governing parties often deploy party cadres to the administration rather than make appointments on merit, competency, and professionalism.
In some cases, party officials in junior administrative positions have high-ranking party positions. They often instruct senior public administrators who are junior to them in the party to implement 'party' directives which often clashes with the public interests. Political party card-carrying public servants often act as activists within the public service rather than employees, undermining the stability of the service.
Governing parties often use municipal budgets for party purposes, whether conferences, internal party election campaigns or party functions. Politicians often interfere in the workings of municipal public accounts and audit committees - quashing investigations into negative audit findings - and in some cases even intimidate external audit officials from the Auditor-General.
Municipal managers in many cases are deployed party cadres, rather than professional public servants appointed on merit, and not aligned to parties. Municipal procurement contracts are often parcelled out to connected governing party cadres and businesses and not on a competitive competency basis.
Currently, municipal managers oversee the election or vote of no-confidence in mayors or determine whether an elected local representative has transgressed rules. This undermines the firewall between political and public administration. It also puts the municipal manager in the firing line of political representatives - who often victimised them afterwards (Joel 2024).
Conclusion
It is critical that the country introduce a coalition governance framework that provides more predictable processes in establishing and governing coalitions to help bring stability to these forms of government. Effective coalition governments will be difficult to achieve unless SA has a professional public service.
Finally, effective coalition politics demands a better governance culture, for leaders and parties to prioritise the best interest of South Africa, and not themselves, their political parties, and ultimately demands mature political leaders - which are currently not widely present.
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*Prof William Gumede co-chaired the SA Local Government Association (SALGA) dialogue, "Strengthening Inclusive Coalition Governance for Effective, Efficient, and Transformative Service Delivery", aimed to come up with proposals for a coalition governance legal framework for all spheres of South African government, which took place on 28 and 29 February 2024 in Pretoria. The dialogue was supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
These were his opening remarks at the SALGA dialogue.
