Between 2011 and 2016 there was a handful of coalitions in the Western Cape, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. The north of the country did not know what a coalition looked like.
The 2016 local government election results saw municipalities in eight out of the nine provinces experience coalitions. Gauteng, the Free State, North West and the Eastern Cape all had the opportunity to see a coalition on a local level in their province. Only Mpumalanga has never experienced a coalition on a local level.
There were four categories of coalitions in the past local government term.
Category 1: coalition to keep control
This pertains to municipalities where the party that had more than 50% of the seats between 2011-2016 fell below 50% but remained in control of the municipality because of a coalition deal with smaller parties. The most well-known example of this is in the Ekurhuleni metro. The ANC governed in the East Rand, courtesy of the support of the Eastern Cape-based African Independent Congress (AIC). They brought in other smaller parties, but the support of the AIC gave the ANC the stability to govern without being held to ransom by a partner that barely made it into the council, with only one seat.
This coalition has been stable, despite early protestations by the AIC that they would walk away from the coalition if the national government did not move on their fundamental goal, the incorporation of Matatiele into KwaZulu-Natal instead of the Eastern Cape.
This category extended to another ANC-AIC coalition in the platinum belt of Rustenburg where these two parties with a single-seat local party, the Botho Community Movement (BCM), did a deal to give the ANC a one-seat majority in the largest North West municipality. The BCM threatened to sink the government in March 2020 because they felt the administration was ignoring Boitekong township, the area the BCM hails from. This three-party deal lasted the full five-year term. It is important to distinguish between political stability and effective service delivery. Rustenburg has not had to navigate the same turbulent political waters as Nelson Mandela Bay, but the coalition steering the Rustenburg ship has struggled with effective service delivery and infrastructure maintenance.
Category 2: coalition to gain control
Nelson Mandela Bay metro is a good example of this category. The DA finished as the biggest party in Gqeberha in 2016. However, they fell short of a governing majority and turned to the UDM, the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) and COPE to take over from the once-dominant ANC.
The relationship between the DA mayor and his UDM deputy was acrimonious at best. The relationship would break down and the Patriotic Alliance (PA) would replace the UDM in the coalition. The council had a DA mayor and a DA speaker but it was effectively hung as the coalition only had 60-120 seats.
The 120th and final seat on the Nelson Mandela Bay council was won by Marlon Daniels of the PA. The party barely made it into the council, yet both the DA and its coalition partners and the ANC and its coalition partners were stymied by the one-seat Nelson Mandela Bay wrecking ball — Daniels. His kingmaker crown went to his head as he changed allegiances as often as the November wind in Gqeberha.
Nelson Mandela Bay endured a few months of tenure with an acting AIC mayor. They also only won one seat in 2016. The fact that a major metro had a mayor who was clearly not the choice of the overwhelming majority of voters was not good for the city. Daniels was able to sink or prop up a coalition as his mind saw fit. This was not good for effective coalitions, nor was it good for service delivery. Council sessions at Nelson Mandela Bay were known for violence and comedy instead of decisions being made to improve the lives of the residents of this important metro. The original 2016 coalition has been reassembled and has brought better stability for the largest city in the Eastern Cape since Nqaba Bhanga took over as mayor with the support of the UDM and the two smaller parties.
Category 3: minority governments
The EFF made the decision to work with opposition parties from the outside in 2016 in councils where no party had an outright majority in council. This meant they would help get opposition mayors and speakers elected in councils such as Johannesburg, Tshwane, Metsimaholo (Sasolburg), Thabazimbi and Modimolle-Mookgophong. They would also support those administrations with key votes, but not take up positions on the respective mayoral committees.
This was the EFF’s solution in choosing between the devil and the deep blue (or black, green and yellow) sea. This was for them the optimal way of wounding the king of the SA political jungle and not getting too close to a party that has many views to which they are diametrically opposed. It is indeed astonishing to think that the EFF’s outside support of the DA and the Freedom Front Plus coalition in Modimolle-Mookgophong lasted the full term in the Waterberg region in Limpopo. These strange bedfellows put national politics aside and did their best here.
However, the experience in places such as Tshwane and Johannesburg was less rosy. The bigger the city, the bigger the drama. It could be argued that if these were not minority governments but rather governments where the EFF was at the official table, there would have been more determination from all coalition partners to take this opportunity by the scruff of the neck and improve service delivery for the residents of these metros. At the same time, it would allow these parties to show clear improvements to the voters who supported the various coalition partners. Minority governments are not recommended for the next term of local government. It is important that parties that help form the government sit in it, and share in the spoils and the failures.
Category 4: KwaZulu-Natal and the executive committee system
KwaZulu-Natal has long experienced coalitions. It has a provincewide system of power sharing where, depending on the size of the council, all parties that qualify through the strength of the votes they received in that municipality get to sit on the executive committee. These are effectively governments of local unity where the bigger parties sit on the committee and govern together. For instance, in 2016, the IFP did a deal with the EFF and the DA and got IFP mayors and speakers elected across KwaZulu-Natal where neither it nor the ANC had an outright majority. However, because of the system of government, the rest of the positions on the executive committee would be filled by the ANC by virtue of the strength of their support in that municipality, rather than the considerably smaller EFF or DA. This system means the voices of all significant parties in that municipality get represented on an executive level, yet it also could have a warped direction if the parties have vastly different outlooks or goals in that municipality.
In conclusion, South Africans who have experienced coalition administrations for the past five years have not always experienced improved service delivery. Their municipalities have often been hamstrung by outsize egos who forget about the residents when they enter those council chambers. However, after November 1 many more South Africans will have the opportunity to make up their own minds whether coalition governments work, because as things stand there will be many more coalitions.
• Sussman is an independent election analyst.
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