Cape Town - Deputy President Paul Mashatile and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula’s weekend hints that the 2024 national election could see the formation of a coalition government in South Africa, have drawn mixed reactions.
Mashatile and Mbalula were speaking on Friday at the National Dialogue on Coalition Governments, which Mashatile hosted at the UWC campus.
Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs Deputy Minister Parks Tau said coalition legislation had already been drafted.
Mashatile said in his speech: “Universally, every political party desires to govern. However, when an election produces no outright winner, parties are forced to enter into such partnerships as coalitions.”
He said the government was keenly aware of the challenge of addressing such a contentious issue as coalition building, and that the weekend’s dialogues were “several years late”.
“Had we paused earlier to reflect on how best to promote and maintain consensus within our evolving democracy, we might have avoided some of the recent distressing scenes that have played out dramatically in some of our metropolitan municipalities,” he said.
Mbalula outlined a set of measures and principles to be met by potential coalition partners in municipalities, including that the party that won the largest share of the votes should lead the coalition.
He also said a threshold should be introduced to bring a degree of legitimacy with regard to what amount of electoral support qualified a party or candidate to be part of councils and coalition governments.
CPUT political scientist Dr Trust Matsilele said the talks were a necessary conversation and, perhaps more than anything, a reflection from the electorate that no single party deserved to govern by themselves.
The ANC leadership comments led to widespread speculation at the meeting that the ANC and DA had come to some sort of agreement.
However, DA Chief Whip Siviwe Gwarube dismissed such speculation and said: “The purported meeting of the minds between the DA and the ANC is nothing more than the governing party hijacking the DA’s legislative proposals already in Parliament.”
Reacting to Tau’s comments, Gwarube said the development of parallel legislation which borrowed extensively from the draft bills brought by the DA was operating in bad faith.
“The inputs made by political parties in the past two days have been in vain, since the outcome is already decided upon,” she said.
GOOD Party secretary-general Brett Herron said although the declaration at the end of the talks committed participants to further consultation, the “Broad Actions and Timelines” document proposed that a framework be tabled in Parliament by November.
“This is inconsistent with the commitment to further dialogue contained in the declaration and inconsistent with working to find sufficient consensus.”
NFP member Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam said one reason for parties joining coalitions was corruption, but that when they disagreed on the use of public resources, the coalition governments collapsed.
Welcoming the participants to the province, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde urged the delegates to put their egos aside and ensure their discussions were not a talk shop, but the basis for “urgent action”.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za