EDITORIAL: Post-election horse-trading doesn’t augur well for functioning local governments

It seems like some people have a strange idea of what constitutes democracy and the will of the people.

This is something that has become clear in the haggling and horse-trading after the local elections, with leaders making unrealistic and even outrageous demands that don’t match what they achieved in the ballot box. And sometimes they got their way, something that can only further erode faith in the process after voters showed what they thought of the major parties by staying at home in record numbers on November 1. 

Herman Mashaba, the former DA mayor of the City of  Johannesburg, deserves a special mention, together with the EFF, who previously helped prop up his administration. Mashaba’s mayorship ended in 2019 when he left the DA, part of the fallout of its poor showing in the national elections held that year and the return of Helen Zille to a powerful position.

Thanks to inconclusive elections, SA’s major political parties were on Monday facing a tight deadline to conclude talks and set up functional governments in municipalities across the country by Wednesday.  As of Monday, there were so many twists and turns it was hard to keep up. At the time of writing, Johannesburg was still to appoint a mayor, while a DA candidate had a shock victory to take the mayor's position in Ekurhuleni.

In Nelson Mandela Bay, the ANC, which had been tied with the DA previously, managed to get enough votes to secure the mayor’s position. 

While the ANC was the biggest party nationally, more than twice as big as its closest opponent, the liberation party was nonetheless punished for years of corruption and mismanagement that has left municipalities across the country dysfunctional.

While the ANC suffered an embarrassing and potentially defining setback, getting less than 50% of the vote nationally for the first time in any election held since 1994, voters also didn’t give mandates to its opponents to run metros on their own, with the DA in Cape Town the exception.

In Johannesburg, the ruling party won 33% of the vote, followed by the DA on 26%. A pact between the two would easily result in a function administration where they would both be held responsible by voters for a lack of delivery. Mutual animosity, however, ruled that out, though neither has the numbers to easily form a stable government.

So they both had to do some haggling. On Sunday, Mashaba cried foul over the DA’s refusal to back him as mayor. He had been double-crossed by his former party, he told the Sunday Times, showing an unhealthy sense of entitlement and a disregard for the voters’ verdict. No doubt Mashaba’s ActionSA did well in its first race to grab 16% of the proportional vote in the city. But that made it only the third-biggest party in the city.

It beggars belief then that Mashaba would even consider letting a potential deal with the party that came second — having said from the word go that an ANC partnership was off-limits — collapse unless it was in line with his personal ambition. Likewise, his allies, the EFF, had previously convinced themselves that a mere 10% of the vote in Tshwane entitled them to the position of mayor. 

By early evening on Monday, indications were that the DA, in order to get its way in Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and Johannesburg, like in Nelson Mandela Bay, would have to accept the support of the EFF. Later, Mashaba issued a statement saying that ActionSA had after all that voted “reluctantly” for DA mayoral candidates in Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and eThekwini.

It had been widely assumed that getting into such deals with the EFF, together with an election performance in 2019 that  with hindsight  actually looks decent, was the unforgivable sin that led to the removal of Mmusi Maimane as DA leader. The last time these two parties got together, it ended badly, and it doesn’t require too much imagination to foresee what the cost of the EFF’s backing will be. 

Overall, the horse-trading and backroom deals have been quite a spectacle. But it’s not one that inspires confidence in the future of municipalities that are in desperate need of renewal so that they can serve their residents.