Opposition party leaders seeking to remove the ANC from power in the 2024 national and provincial elections have agreed on a power-sharing agreement.
According to the deal, power will be shared in proportion to election results, appointments to government positions will be based on merit, cabinets will reflect the diversity of the country and lifestyle audits of all members of the executive will be implemented.
“They have agreed a leader of the largest party in the bloc will become leader of government business,” independent chair Prof William Gumede said on the last day of the meeting.
Leaders of the DA, IFP, Independent SA National Civic Organisation, Freedom Front Plus, ActionSA, United Independent Movement and the Spectrum National Party met over the past two days to discuss the values and principles that will guide a pact government, rules of engagement during the election campaign, and formulae to form cabinets after the 2024 election.
The discussions of the grouping — now called the “multiparty charter for SA” — were held at Emperor’s Palace in Kempton Park and came at a time when several surveys, including one by the ANC itself, indicated that the governing party’s electoral support could fall below 50% in 2024. Buoyed by these opinion polls, opposition parties are gearing up for closer co-operation should the ANC fail to get a majority.
The decision for parties to come together was necessitated by the instabilities in coalition-run municipalities, which resulted in unapproved budgets and rowdy council meetings and undermined service delivery.
The parties agreed to work on a “fully fledged policy platform in the coming months” and have also agreed on solutions to the socioeconomic challenges dogging SA. “We are on track to deliver the pre-election coalition pact in SA. We are almost there,” Gumede said.
The seven parties have also agreed that the cabinet will be “streamlined” under their coalition government as it is “top heavy”. “We’ve got one of the largest cabinets compared to our emerging-market peers around the world,” Gumede said.
Power will be shared in proportion to election results, which is significant as it could help stabilise the coalition.
In the 270-seat Johannesburg council, Kabelo Gwamanda from the three-seat Al Jama-ah party, is executive mayor of SA’s largest and richest metro. In Ekurhuleni, Sivuyile Ngodwana from the three-seat African Independent Congress, is mayor of the 224-seat council.
Progress
The multiparty charter for SA said the parties will not work with the ANC, EFF or any “rival formations” and “will not vote for any office bearers of the ANC and EFF — nominated either directly or indirectly — at any inaugural meetings of the National Assembly, National Council of Provinces and provincial legislatures”.
Prof Levy Ndou, a coalitions expert and political analyst at the Tshwane University of Technology, said the electorate should take the charter seriously. “Every political party would love to run government. Their plan is to form a government and, obviously, what they are trying to do is [avoid] a situation where after the election there would be unnecessary conflict, which has been the case in many metros in SA,” Ndou said.
“The nonattendance by other political parties should be a matter of concern ... if you look at the political parties that were there, they cannot form a government, if you look at their support base,” he said.
“The big journey ahead is for them to convince other parties to come in.”
Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said: “Never before have we seen serious pre-election talk in SA. It’s a very good progress, in my view, to see political parties engaging in pre-election talk.
“I hope they have agreed not to attack each other during the election campaign period.
“But that aside, the big achievement in all of this is that they have realised the importance of pre-election discussion. It shows the level of maturity of our opposition parties.”
Mathekga acknowledged that opposition parties do not have experience in this but the “mere fact that they have put this on paper is a big achievement”.
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