SA politics in process of significant transition
Should ANC support fall it could be the beginning of coalition governments
FOR more than two decades the ANC has been the government of South Africa having achieved convincing majorities in both national and provincial legislatures, with the exception of the Western Cape. For the first time since the inception of our democratic dispensation in 1994 this might no longer be the case. Should the support for the ANC fall below 50% in the 2019 elections, the political situation could be paradigmatically transformed.
This would, it is submitted, herald the beginning of coalition governments at national level, as well as such kinds of government in one or more of the provinces of some kind. This is indeed a politically innovative and interesting development. How did this arise?
Prior to the local government elections on August 3, 2016, South Africa could have been accurately described as a dominant party state democracy. This flowed from the fact that the ANC secured 63% in the local government elections of 2011. In the 2016 local government election, its support diminished to 53.91%.
A paradigmatic change has occurred with its support having dwindled to not merely less than 60%, but below 55%.
What has emerged is a change in political paradigm. The results illustrate in no uncertain terms that the days of ANC hegemony in South African politics are over and that what is occurring is indeed a system of manifestly multi-party democracy. This was accompanied by the loss of three important metros and the need for coalition governments in these.
The emergence of such a multi-party system in place of ANC hegemony in our political system is due to, inter alia, in part to the growth of the DA and EFF, which respectively obtained 26.9%, up from 24% and 8.19% up from 6.4% obtained in the general election of 2014.
Leon Schreiber has written an interesting and fascinating book entitled
on exactly how such coalition political arrangements work and the relevance of the phenomenon for South Africa.
In this regard he opines that the country could soon be run by coalition parties, forcing compromises on a number of key issues and observing further that “the era of one party dominance has come to an end”.
This flowed directly, he explains, when proportional representation (PR) was deliberately chosen in the early 1990s during the political negotiations of that time at Codesa and the MultiParty Negotiation process.
However, most of the electorate had an “unexamined assumption of single party rule” during the apartheid era and the ANC’s dominance since 1994.
PR almost inevitably results in multi-party governments he explains. He further explains that the SA electoral system is unique in the African context and furthermore there is a need for compromise in the deeply divided society that we as a nation are. In this regard we need to develop a coalition culture.
What must also be taken into account is that the ANC performance has for some time been in decline, bearing in mind that the ANC has been in office for more than 20 years.
This has occurred with other liberation movements, such as the Congress Party of India. This state of affairs may not be easily arrested and as a result the national and provincial elections due to be held in 2019 can be predicted to follow this trend.
All things considered from the point of view of democracy, this is a healthy political development and indicates that a maturation is taking place in our politics.
What is clear from an analysis of the election results is that the ANC cannot merely as a former liberation movement take the support of African voters for granted, many of them, particularly in the urban metros, absented themselves from voting during 2016 local government elections.
It has also quite clearly lost any remaining support it had of the minorities, coloured, Indian and white.
Schreiber also explains that structural shifts in South Africa’s demographics and voting patterns, as well as the urbanisation of and growth of the middle class are all a threat to the ANC.
In this regard he states “urban voters are more interested in things like education, corruption and practical services delivery than the liberation narrative”.
As a result he concludes that there is “strong evidence that the ANC is becoming a rural party”.
Coalition government is however no panacea. It has worked well in certain European countries like Germany, but in African countries, like Kenya and Zimbabwe it has been problematic.
By its nature such government is inherently unstable and it requires political maturity to make it work.
This is well illustrated by the recent events in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. Minority governments are cognate arrangements, similar to the current DA/EFF agreement in Johannesburg, requiring that an actual majority has to be built up for each and every legislative amendment. Such an arrangement as Schreiber explains in his book “would become very slow, tedious and potentially corrupt”.
Nevertheless, what is clear from the above and from the emergence of coalition governments in the urban metros of Tshwane, Nelson Mandela Metropole and Johannesburg is that the party political scene is in the process of significant transition.
This is a beneficial development that should lead to improved service delivery, greater transparency, accountability and less corruption and creates a precedent for national government.
Schreiber interestingly points out that the first democratic government with Nelson Mandela as president as one of national unity “was a coalition of sorts” and there was no way the country would have the present 1996 constitution in its current form “unless we had what was essentially a coalition culture”.
What he means by this is that the negotiation at Codesa and the Multi-party Negotiation process of 1992 and 1993 respectively involving significant compromises produced a political settlement and the interim constitution of 1994 on which the final constitution is based.
This constitutes an important precedent for coalition governments and political arrangements of this sort.