ANC pushes for new coalition measures

● Party wants to exclude smaller parties from taking over mayoral positions

The ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) wants to lock out smaller parties from taking the mayoral chain in coalitions due to the present instabilities.

During its four-day NEC meeting held in Boksburg, the ANC said the biggest parties in councils would decide who becomes mayor and also take up the largest allocation of seats in the executive.

This was communicated by ANC political education committee co-ordinator David Makhura during a media briefing after tabling a document on the strategic framework on coalitions.

Makhura said parties with limited support could not be allowed to run councils while those that received the majority of votes occupied insignificant positions in the mayoral committee.

“The picture in the country is very mixed.

“You have small parties carrying big cities and this is not an expression or the view of the voters and this is not democratic.

“The largest party based on the electoral outcome must be able to determine who leads the coalition.”

He said this would be effected immediately, especially with pending motions of no confidence around the metros, namely, the City of Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay, against the respective mayors.

Gauteng metros — Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni — have been rocked by instability due to smaller parties switching allegiances in fragile coalitions, which has seen mayoral chains taken by smaller parties.

Makhura also said one of the proposals made was introducing new legislation that binds parties legally to their coalition agreements.

The ANC and the DA could also be forced to work together if the ruling party instituted Section 12 of the Municipal Structures Act around SA’s hung councils.

The ANC and DA are the two biggest parties in the hung councils, meaning both parties would be forced to work together along with the thirdand fourth-biggest parties in council.

The executive collective system, which is Section 12 of the Municipal Structures Act, scraps the mayoral executive system and takes powers away from a mayor and allows a new committee to run proceedings.

This is in place in some municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal. In the Eastern Cape, the provincial department of co-operative governance wants to scrap the mayoral system in Nelson Mandela Bay in favour of the collective executive system.

The DA-run coalition government, which has been at the helm for just more than seven months in the metro, is opposing the implementation of this system.

“We ’ ve seen much more stability in municipalities run by the collective executive system over the mayoral system,” Makhura said. “This means parties will be represented proportionally according to the seats they got in council.

“We only have trouble where [there’s] a mayoral executive system. We’re thinking of introducing an executive system in all hung councils.”

Makhura dismissed the idea that the collective executive system would be abused and only implemented where the ANC was not in a coalition government.