Bay is proof complex coalition governments can work

Even the staunchest detractors of the current Nelson Mandela Bay coalition must agree that the city has made some significant progress concerning political stability and service delivery in recent months.

In the last financial year, under an ANC-led government, the city recorded some of the worst service delivery records since its inception.

Chaos reigned as the adjustments budget, as well as other key budget virements and business plans, could not be approved by council.

The city reeled as almost all legislatively required deadlines were missed as the political infighting within and among certain parties spilt over into our administration and council chamber.

The ANC indicated it was unable to work with some of its coalition partners and asked that the provincial government step in to help stabilise the administration.

It was against this backdrop that we put together a complicated 10-party coalition to govern the Bay — the biggest and arguably most diverse coalition SA has ever seen.

Even though at the time many thought it would be impossible to launch such a complicated coalition, let alone govern successfully, I believe we have proven the naysayers wrong.

Over the last eight months the city successfully navigated a looming Day Zero, managed for the first time in years to get its housing delivery programme back on track so we could start building RDP houses again, started meeting all its legislative obligations, and timeously approved its budgets, budget virements and business plans. in key performance indicators for service delivery compared to the previous financial year.

Over nearly eight months the city managed to fix more than 20,000 potholes, 15,000 water leaks, 13,000 street lights, approved 150 town planning amendments, created nearly 5,000 EPWP job opportunities and built 500 RDP houses.

While the coalition is complicated to manage, its foundation is one of mutual respect, consultative decision making and equality.

Thus, decision-making is mostly through reaching consensus or making concessions; though tedious, it is working.

The political principals of some of the parties within the coalition were amazed at the collegiality and mutual respect that exists between the parties, remarking that this should set an example to other, less complicated metro coalitions elsewhere in SA.

Unfortunately, over the last couple of weeks our coalition was rocked when the speaker of council, councillor Gary van Niekerk, indicated that his party, the Northern Alliance, would leave our coalition because he was offered the mayor position in a new coalition with the ANC and EFF.

Though it is unfair on coalition partners to renegotiate coalition agreements after inception, the DA has since offered the NA another position within the coalition, at our own cost, in a bid to keep the coalition intact.

It is still early days and we trust we will be able to convince the NA that an ANC/EFF coalition is not viable or in the best interest of the city.

The trend whereby mayoral seats are offered to so-called “kingmaker” parties by the ANC/EFF should be concerning to the public, and will ultimately lead to the demise of some of these parties.

While the current coalition is proof the less mainstream parties and their representatives can make valuable contributions to government and democracy, it is nonsensical that parties that have received 3% or less of the political mandate by the electorate get the nod to lead governments.

And so apparently the “kingmaker” now seemingly can become the “king”?

We have seen that the practice to elect mayors from the less mainstream parties has led to chaos in some of the Gauteng metros.

This has led to a public outcry that measures and/or legislation should be invoked to support coalitions and/or regulate these types of governments. The National Treasury, together with Salga and Cogta, are now all seemingly adding their voices in dissent to the inability of parties to work together in stable coalition arrangements.

The solution proposed by the ANC is a change in the governance model, whereby all councils where there is no clear (ANC) majority, will be changed from a mayoral executive to a collective executive — effectively preventing all lessmainstream parties from ever holding executive office again.

Though I wholeheartedly agree there is a need to strengthen legislation and/or regulations concerning coalition governments and management, I do not believe the proposed change in governance model is the way to go.

First, I think it is undemocratic to prevent “smaller” parties from holding executive office altogether and second, the move will just provide the ANC with a political lifeline and give them access to the executive for years to come.

I believe coalition governments can work.

I also believe that even the most complicated coalition governments that exclude the ANC can provide better services and be more functional than an ANC-based government.

To remain relevant, all “smaller parties” must be able to prove they can be part of stable coalitions instead of continuously jumping between different coalitions in search of better offers and patronage.

Alternatively, they run the risk of rendering themselves irrelevant due to political immaturity and opportunism.