Keeping the ANC in the pound seats?

A draft law is in the works to ensure that all hung municipalities move from a mayoral executive system to government by a collective executive committee.

This will mean hung municipalities being run by a committee in which parties are represented on a proportional basis: the party that receives the largest number of votes will receive the most seats on the executive committee.

The ANC has argued that this will bring stability to a local government sector that’s been hamstrung by political divisions. The  record number of hung councils after the 2021 elections has seen a high turnover of mayors and mayoral committees through motions of no confidence as coalition arrangements disintegrate and loyalties shift, with service delivery suffering. 

But opposition parties warn that the move is aimed at ensuring that the ANC keeps its hands on the reins of power, as it remains the largest party in most councils.

Co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Thembi Nkadimeng said at a media briefing on Thursday that the process of drawing up the “coalition bills”, which would include amendments to the Municipal Structures Act, is under way. 

“Among the various changes, the amendments seek to transform municipalities with a mayoral executive system, wherein no party secures a majority of seats, into a collective executive system,” she said.

Still, any possibility of legislative change to stabilise the messy coalitions in councils across South Africa is unlikely to take place any time soon. The bills were already in the works ahead of Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s dialogue on coalitions, held in July, which has largely stalled. But they’re unlikely to be finalised ahead of the 2024 election and so will have to be tabled in the seventh parliament. 

Nkadimeng said the changes will also include a provision for binding coalition agreements, as well as a proposal for motions of no-confidence to be held only every two years or under strict conditions. That’s a likely bid to avoid the mayoral musical chairs that have plagued municipalities and metros including Joburg, Ekurhuleni and Nelson Mandela Bay.

She added that her department is “actively engaging with stakeholders for these alterations”.

According to insiders, the bill has been with the department for a long time but hasn’t been taken to the cabinet for approval, which means it cannot be released for public comment. The delays are inexplicable, as there is a dire need to stabilise hung councils.

Another view is that the bills are ready to be processed but have been held back by Mashatile’s dialogue — and will continue to be, as long as that process remains unfinished. 

It makes no sense to start a new process; what could be done is for the bills already before parliament to be panel-beaten

—  Siviwe Gwarube

DA chief whip Siviwe Gwarube tells the FM that the timing is all wrong, as parliament is already sitting on a huge backlog of unprocessed legislation. 

“It is unlikely to make it through this term, unless they plan to introduce it before [the] 2026 [local government election],” she says. 

She is disappointed that the department opted to put together new legislation when there are already two bills before parliament that the DA has proposed. 

“It makes no sense to start a new process; what could be done is for the bills already before parliament to be panel-beaten,” she says. 

She notes there are areas of agreement between the position put forward by the department and that contained in the bill she tabled, including that coalition agreements should be binding and that there should be provisions on thresholds for parties. 

Gwarube acknowledges that the collective executive system is already used in certain municipalities — eThekwini is an example. And she says the DA doesn’t completely disagree with the proposal. But it will oppose the extension of the system of leadership to every hung council, and would prefer that it be implemented on a case-by-case basis.

The bills Gwarube has brought to parliament are set to be voted on in the coming weeks. That leaves the ANC in a bind, she says, as it is likely to vote against the bills — in line with its policy to vote against private members’ bills — but then introduce its own bills at a later stage.

Smaller parties are more aggressive in their opposition to a move to a collective executive system, which could see many of them without a seat at the table.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa describes the potential move as “manipulation of the highest order”. 

“Since the ANC began losing elections in the big metros in 2016, it has been on a programme to destabilise those metros to show that coalitions don’t work, until they started taking them back after 2021,” he says. “The problem they will have is if there is another party in the majority after 2024. It won’t succeed.”

Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Groenewald says his party will also object to the move. “It is another way to ensure that the ANC will still be in government,” he says.

While Groenewald believes there is no way the party will be able to get a bill still in its draft stages through parliament before the election — or perhaps not even before the next local government election, given that it could face a legal challenge — he is concerned that the ANC is already using its parliamentary majority to force through legislation. 

As for the Patriotic Alliance, Gayton McKenzie describes the move as a “cop-out” that his party will oppose. 

It appears the only serious proposal by the ANC to stabilise coalitions at local government level may end up not even seeing the light of day — yet another indication that time is running out for the erstwhile “leader of society”. 

ANC/EFF tie-up unlikely, says FF Plus leader

Old hands in parliament seem somewhat sanguine about the coming election and the coalition prospects South Africa is facing.

The voter registration drive held by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) over the weekend produced some interesting results, indicating tentatively that the country could be headed for yet another low-turnout election. This should worry the ANC, whose voters are largely those opting out of the electoral process.

At the same time, the DA recently punted an internal poll on voter sentiment, indicating that its support now stands just seven percentage points below that of the ANC. DA leader John Steenhuisen says the ANC stands at 39% nationally, while DA support has grown to 32%.

The poll is hugely out of kilter with surveys conducted by independent polling companies, which on average place the ANC’s support at about 48% and the DA’s at about 24%.

Either way, there is a strong sense that the election will mark some dramatic shifts provincially — with a chance of an upset for the ANC nationally too. 

Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Groenewald, who has been in parliament since 1989, says there should be a constitutional amendment to ensure that there is more time after elections to put together a government. 

Where no party has an outright majority, the current legal time frame of 14 days is simply not enough for parties to talk to all partners and come to an agreement that could last five years, he says.   

Second, he doesn’t believe the ANC and the EFF will enter a coalition nationally, or provincially, next year. 

“I think the ANC will rather go into a coalition with the DA than the EFF; the bad blood between the ANC and the EFF is too much … what is more likely is a government of national unity of sorts,” he says. 

He says President Cyril Ramaphosa has been hinting at this in parliament, speaking often about how all parties must “take hands”, “take responsibility” and “come together” to address the mess the country is in. 

Groenewald says he would bet that a government of national unity (GNU) will be the route the ANC follows, should the need arise next year. It is one his party would support. 

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa isn’t losing any sleep over the post-2024 political landscape. He also believes in a potential GNU, with the ANC and the DA at its centre. But he adds, “the main thing is, I don’t have a problem with coalitions, they are not a problem. The sky won’t fall, even if it is an ANC/EFF coalition”. 

Holomisa says coalitions may not necessarily be formed between individual parties, but rather between “blocs” or “streams” of parties. The first would be the ANC and its allies, the second the multiparty charter initiated by the DA, and the third the EFF and other parties left of the ANC. Agreements could be made between two of these blocs to form governments in provinces and, if necessary, nationally. 

Most of the parties are similar ideologically when you drill down into their policies. So what it will boil down to is capacity and the ability to reverse the decline in the state and the economy, he says. 

This is, after all, the most crucial aspect of coalition building: how will it fix South Africa?