Coalition: Who’s got the power?
Can opposition parties overcome their differences to form an effective national government in 2024? It will take hard work – and possibly transparent, legally binding agreements. By
In the next two years South Africa will be heading to the polls for the national elections. Several analysts and early election polls anticipate that results would mean that political parties will have to form coalition governments.
Conversations about the possibility of a national coalition government have arisen after a poll by Ipsos suggested, if an election was held tomorrow, the ANC would get 42%, the DA 11%, the EFF 9% and Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA 3% of the votes at a national level. A second poll, published by Rapport newspaper at the weekend, has the ANC at 38%, the DA at 27% and the EFF at 10%.
Cracks in the DA-led coalition governments in Gauteng municipalities allude to the enormous challenges that a national coalition government would face.
Gauteng coalition crisis
This week has been an arduous one for the DA as it has had to deal with attempts by other parties to remove its mayors in Tshwane and Johannesburg.
In Tshwane, Mayor Randall Williams has been accused of interfering in a R26-billion energy investment proposal for the city by its own coalition partner ActionSA, as well as by the EFF and the ANC.
The motions brought about by the ANC and the EFF were unsuccessful after both parties staged a walkout at the council sitting, which was concluded late on 25 August.
ActionSA backed out at the last minute. This move was promoted by a decision made by coalition partners to conduct an independent probe into the matter instead.
Minority parties have not been able to get their motion against Johannesburg Executive Mayor Mpho Phalastse approved, but Speaker Vasco Da Gama could not escape it.
The strength of the coalition in the city will be tested on 31 August when the council votes on whether Da Gama should be booted out or not. This is not unfamiliar territory for the DA. In the previous term it was removed from power after two years of governing Joburg and Nelson Mandela Bay, although it stayed in Tshwane after fighting relentlessly.
This week DA party leader John Steenhuisen said the ANC was the force behind the “desperate” and “coordinated” attacks against its leaders. He said the ANC was attacking South Africa and threatening to drag the country back to a place it should never, ever return to.
“This is the work of an ANC that finds itself cut off from its entire patronage network in these Gauteng metros. As a result it now cannot fund its own operation or pay its own staff, not to mention the blow this has dealt to the lavish lifestyles many of its members have become accustomed to.
“These coordinated attacks on our mayors – and also our speakers – are nothing short of a coup attempt by the corrupt.
“But this goes beyond our mayors, our speakers and these individual metro coalitions. Because what the ANC is attacking is the very idea of a coalition alternative in South Africa,” he said.
The party’s focus is now on replacing the ANC national government with a coalition government in 2024.
“I also have no doubt that most of our coalition partners will stand right beside us to help ward off this attempted power grab. There are many of us across multiple parties who share a vision of a South Africa that works for all its people and who believe that this vision is now well within our reach.
“Every party is going to have to think long and hard about where they’d like to see South Africa after 2024. Because when we speak of a coalition alternative following the next election, we’re not only talking about one possibility,” Steenhuisen said.
DA coalition partners speak out
ActionSA is in coalitions with the DA in Johannesburg and Tshwane but admits that there are fundamental errors in the manner in which the party runs its coalitions.
While party national chair Michael Beaumont made it categorically clear that ActionSA had no part in the motions of no confidence against Phalatse and Da Gama, it had issues that were bubbling beneath the surface, one being the DA not following through with appointing an ActionSA deputy mayor for the Johannesburg metro.
“There are undoubtedly tensions on various subjects … the non-implementation of the deputy mayor position eight months in is such a topic. Well, there’s a variety of others, you know, the slow pace of implementing multiparty agreed policy priorities is another. But those are not at the point where we would ever consider collapsing coalitions, or voting off mayors. Those are issues that we deal with through the coalition structures,” said Beaumont.
He highlighted the issues faced by smaller parties with regard to agreements and in particular where the DA has continued to fail to effectively bridge the gap.
“To be honest with you, I am not sure we ever saw eye to eye with the DA on the writing of coalitions even when we were in the DA. One of the things that Herman Mashaba was criticised by the DA a lot for in his 2016 term of office was his willingness to afford his coalition partners the opportunity to really contribute in government and to take a place at the table.
“I think one of the experiences that we have found is that there’s got to be a greater level of respect for the different political parties in the coalition. Being the largest party in a coalition doesn’t make you any more important than a one-seat party that holds the balance of power,” he explained.
When asked why ActionSA still decided to work with the DA despite all their concerns, Beaumont said it was all in the name of keeping the ANC out of government. ActionSA has not yet delved deeply into its plans for 2024 but one thing is for sure, it will maintain its anti-ANC stance.
“In other words, if you consider that the work of a government in 2024 will be to fix what has been broken by the ANC, you cannot possibly work with the party that has created this problem. And that’s one thing that we are unequivocal about in ActionSA.
“But I also think that our president has been very clear that working together from a national and provincial perspective with the EFF would also be very challenging… While in local government, one can deal with a degree of pragmatism, simply because local government is much more just about service delivery, when you start to address more ideological issues [at] the provincial and national level, I think working with the EFF would be a bridge too far.”
Patriotic Alliance
Patriotic Alliance deputy president Kenny Kunene agrees with Beaumont regarding the conduct of bigger organisations in multiparty arrangements. He made examples of the DA and the ANC, saying they would continue to experience problems with their partners because they tended to exclude their coalition partners in key decision-making.
He said other issues that continued to mar coalitions were political parties continuing to shield corrupt individuals in local government just to save face.
“The DA and the ANC only understood running municipalities when they were in the majority. So, when it is a coalition, they tend not to consult with other parties and that is where the problem starts.
“We want a power-sharing agreement because you have not won this municipality outright. The coalition partners also have people that have voted for them in this community. These big parties don’t respect the smaller parties and that is why coalitions don’t end well,” he said.
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) MP Mkhuleko Hlengwa, however, believes that the party with the most votes in a multiparty agreement should be given the space to lead, but that this should not result in intimidating smaller parties.
“It must also be understood that being in a coalition does not give political parties equal weight. That is a statement that must be made with the necessary caution that it comes with obviously in that there is no big brother or big sister. So it is important that political parties are respected, but at the same time the whims of politics must not hold back service delivery,” he said.
He did, however, raise the party’s past tiff with the DA, which it had decided to work with in Gauteng yet again.
“We have had our fair share of challenges and experiences. I recall that in the Mashaba era the DA undertook, unilaterally without any discussion, to fire an IFP MMC [who] was serving in his mayoral committee,” he said.
In defence of the DA, the party’s Gauteng leader, Solly Msimanga, said it was misleading to say small parties were excluded.
“There are no exclusions as per the coalition agreement. Parties engage at a local level on localised issues through the local multiparty caucuses. There is also a technical committee that sits on an ongoing basis, ensuring that all parties get an opportunity to have issues heard and resolved. There is also what we call the Coalition Oversight Group that has all party leaders meeting on an ongoing basis to ensure continued inclusion and open discussion on the health of the coalition,” Msimanga said.
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