COALITION GOVERNMENTS: PRESIDENCY INITIATES DIALOGUE ON FRAMEWORK PRINCIPLES TO ADDRESS DYSFUNCTION

COALITION GOVERNMENTS: PRESIDENCY INITIATES DIALOGUE ON FRAMEWORK PRINCIPLES TO ADDRESS DYSFUNCTION

• 19 July 2023
• Local Government
• SA Legal Academy

The Presidency has published a ‘concept discussion document’ as the first step in developing a ‘framework for coalition governments’. According to a backdated call for public comments recently posted on the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) website, input is now being sought on the document’s contents – at exceptionally short notice. This is in anticipation of a ‘national dialogue’ scheduled for 3-4 August 2023.

‘Loosely arranged’ coalitions are one of three phenomena to which the discussion document attributes local government ‘instability’. The others are a ‘deficit in … capacity’ and financial mismanagement.

Noting that South Africa now has 81 hung councils in which there is no clear ‘majority political party’, the document refers to the likelihood of a similar trend in national and provincial government’ – and the worrying prospect of ‘dysfunctional coalition arrangements’ further undermining service delivery.

Against that backdrop, the upcoming national dialogue is expected to identify a ‘set of principles that will make coalitions work in the interest of the greater good and in a change-oriented manner.’

In April 2023, the DA’s Siviwe Gwarube announced her intention to prepare and table a Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill with the aim of addressing the unworkability of local level coalition governments comprising as many as ten (or more) ‘smaller parties’.

As SA Legal Academy reported at the time, Gwarube proposed the insertion of ‘an electoral threshold into the calculation and allocation of seats in councils so that parties are required to obtain ‘the number of the votes equal to the seat quota +1 before … (being) considered for seat calculations and allocations’.

Perhaps Gwarube’s initiative was discussed at a meeting on coalition governments convened on 30 June 2023 by Deputy President Paul Mashatile. It was during this meeting that political parties represented in Parliament agreed to participate in the upcoming dialogue.

Notification of the event appeared on the national government website’s landing page on 18 July 2023, when it also featured in a PMG tweet. Yet the deadline for public comment allows interested and affected parties a mere three days to prepare and submit their input. This is noting that:

• the national government website and PMG notices calling for comments are backdated to 13 July 2023 but were posted five days later
• there is no reference in the national government website landing page notification to a deadline for input, and that
• according to a Presidency media statement linked to the notification, the event is taking place on 27 July 2023.

Please click the links below for more information:

• concept discussion document
• national government website notice
• PMG notice
• SA Legal Academy report on DA proposal
• SA Legal Academy report on political instability in Johannesburg City Council

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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