With fewer than 900 days to the next election, the local government alliances show what is possible
In SA, the rise of coalitions in municipal government is not a sign of political maturity so much as a product of necessity. But despite all the problems coalitions pose, this could be an opportunity for the political system to grow up at bit. With fewer than 900 days to the next national election — and the possibility that it will throw up the need for a coalition — the dry run in local government is a key indicator of what is possible.
SA’s single-party-dominant era under the ANC is an aberration for a PR system. The ANC has not needed a coalition to dominate nationally, despite inviting other parties into government, especially in its first term after 1994. At provincial and local levels, coalitions have tended to be a means to grasping some power while working to undermine supposed partners. This has left an unfortunate but widespread sense that having a 50%-plus-one majority in a legislative body confers absolute power.
Equally important, coalitions are the products of compromise. To form coalitions, parties usually have to discard their more extreme positions, even if these appear popular. This forces political parties to decide what is truly fundamental to them and what is secondary. The basis of the coalition is a 177-page coalition contract, laying out not only policies but also the nuts and bolts of how these commitments will be achieved. It took two months to achieve agreement, which is lightning-fast compared with the Netherlands, where parties are still haggling after eight months, or Belgium’s 541-day world record hiatus in 2010-2011.
Some may argue that SA’s political parties are too divergent to ever form stable coalition governments. Indeed, coalition governments have the not-undeserved reputation of tending to be ephemeral, epitomised by Italy’s 66 coalitions since 1945. But Angela Merkel’s German coalitions were stable for 16 years, and Israel now shows how widely divergent parties can find enough in common to form a government.
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