Too late for Coalition Bill to bring stability before November local elections
· Citizen
The outcomes of the 2016 local government elections brought the advent of coalition governance to metropolitan municipalities.
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During these elections, the ANC lost its outright majority in four out of the eight metros in the country.
This led to these metros becoming hung councils, which necessitated coalition governments.
Coalitions weren’t a phenomenon in South Africa’s local government landscape prior to the 2016 election.
But it is the magnitude of the metros that were previously ANC strongholds which catalysed public discourse pertaining to coalition governments, including the need for a coherent framework that will regulate the formation and functionality of coalition governments in municipalities.
The Municipal Structures Amendment Bill (Coalition Bill) was proposed as a response mechanism to the crisis confronting hung councils.
Although the Bill was first introduced in 2024, it still hasn’t materialised into a tangible object that can be utilised to solve the prevalent instability that is engulfing coalition governments, particularly in metros.
Part of what the Bill seeks to achieve is the curtailment of motions of no confidence in mayors, speakers, and chief whips.
Since the 2016 elections, the City of Joburg has experienced 10 mayoral changes, Nelson Mandela Bay and City of Tshwane six.
These political changes often permeate the administration of municipalities, resulting in service delivery backlogs and bottlenecks.
The delayed processing of the Bill reveals the government’s inherent lack of urgency in solving the challenges facing local government.
Municipalities are often neglected and find themselves on the receiving end of the crises that affect the country on a broader scale.
For example, there are long-standing contentions surrounding the funding model of municipalities, yet there has been little to no interventions aimed at resolving this issue.
As a result, many municipalities continue to find themselves in dire financial straits, leading to poor basic service delivery.
Similarly, the stalling of the Coalitions Bill threatens persistent instability in hung municipalities beyond the 4 November elections.
The department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs’ (Cogta) desire for the Bill to be passed before the November election is impractical, given all the stages which the Bill still needs to undergo before getting signed into law by the president.
One of the factors which underlie the unlikelihood of the Bill’s enactment before the local government elections is the preoccupation of the primary stakeholders.
In this case, it is preoccupation with election campaigns by parties that are supposed to be at the forefront of scrutinising the Bill before it advances to subsequent stages of the legislative process that will hinder the Bill from receiving the necessary attention it requires for it to have an impact once signed into law.
Secondly, the complexity of the amendments contained in the Bill need a rigorous public participation process that will provide the public with a clear understanding of the proposed legislation and how it will shape things in the affected councils.
The limited time that parliament has at its disposal to facilitate this process before the November elections makes it impossible to have adequate public participation.
One of the propositions encompassed in the Bill is the timeframe for constituting municipal governance structures.
The Bill proposes that the timeframe be adjusted from 14 to 30 days.
This is to afford political parties sufficient time to deliberate and reach agreements on which the coalition will be premised.
Additionally, the Bill also proposes for coalition agreements between political parties to be submitted to the municipal manager and the MEC for Cogta and for the agreement to be made public in the Provincial Gazette of the affected municipality.
The absence of a coherent legislative framework that regulates coalitions in municipalities implies that there will be a perpetuation of the chaos that has been witnessed in hung municipalities over the past 10 years.
This, coupled with the fragile nature of coalitions in their current form will not only lead to heightened volatility in local government, but it will also weaken government and service delivery.