LOCAL GOVERNMENT: COALITION BILL HEADS TO PARLIAMENT

LOCAL GOVERNMENT: COALITION BILL HEADS TO PARLIAMENT

• 07 August 2026
• Local & Provincial Government
• SA Legal Academy

In anticipation of tabling legislation in Parliament intended to ensure smoother, more effective governance under coalition councils, the Department of Co-operative Governance & Traditional Affairs has gazetted an explanatory summary of the latest Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill.

Approved by Cabinet at its 29 July 2026 meeting, according to a media statement issued at the time the Bill ‘seeks to provide a clear legislative framework for the formation of coalition governments (at municipal level) and to establish mechanisms to minimise … related challenges’. In that regard, the statement referred expressly to provisions intended to:

• ‘promote stable and accountable coalition governance’
• ‘reduce political instability’, and
• ‘support the uninterrupted delivery of services to communities’.

Against that backdrop, the explanatory summary refers to proposals:

• making it mandatory for a councillor appointed as a municipal office bearer to ‘possess the necessary experience, skills or qualifications’
• extending ‘the time period within which a local council must appoint its representatives to the district council’ concerned
• extending ‘the time period within which the first meeting of … (a) council must be called after it has been declared elected’
• prescribing ‘the time period within which a new speaker must be elected’
• extending ‘the time period within which … (a) meeting to determine … members of … (an) executive committee must be held’
• extending ‘the time period within which … (a) meeting for … (electing) a mayor, deputy mayor, an executive mayor and (an) executive deputy mayor must be held’
• prescribing ‘the period in which a (new) executive mayor must be elected after the removal of the (previous) executive mayor’
• prescribing ‘the period in which a mayoral committee must be appointed after the appointment of … (a) newly elected executive mayor’
• requiring provisions for voting at council meetings to include ‘by way of show of hands or secret ballot’, and
• prescribing grounds for removing a municipal officer bearer and the procedure to be followed.

The Cabinet media statement also referred to ‘extensive consultations’ on a draft released in May 2024 for public comment, on which SA Legal Academy reported at the time. These may have included discussions on proposals in a series of amendment Bills prepared on behalf of the Democratic Alliance before the formation of a Government of National Unity (GNU). Two were tabled but allowed to lapse when Parliament rose for the May 2024 elections. In that regard, a link to SA Legal Academy’s report on post-GNU developments is provided below.

• explanatory summary
• Cabinet media statement
• April 2025 SA Legal Academy report

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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