Seminar Highlights: Legislating Sustainable Local Government Coalitions in South Africa
Reflecting on the Coalition Bill (2024)
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), in partnership with the Embassy of Ireland in South Africa, recently convened a seminar discussion to unpack key contents of the Municipal Structures Amendment Act, 2024, also known as the Coalition Bill, and its political, governance and legal implications for the functioning of local government coalitions in South Africa.
The seminar forms part of the Contributing Towards Sustainable Coalitions at Local Government Level in South Africa Project that ACCORD is implementing in 2024, supported by the Embassy of Ireland in South Africa.
The project entails research and capacity-building components to contribute knowledge and conflict resolution skills towards more sustainable coalitions in the country.
KEY OBJECTIVES
• Understanding the Coalition Bill and dissecting its strengths and weaknesses;
• Analysing the potential political, governance, and legal implications of the Coalition Bill;
• Provide a space for practitioners and academics to share ideas and experiences, including experiences from other countries, in order to derive lessons and best practices for South Africa’s local government context;
• Offer recommendations and solutions to loopholes identified in the Coalition Bill in order to inform policy towards more sustainable coalitions at local government.
Key Takeaways from Seminar Participants
"We need an urgent transformational agenda, the danger with coalitions is that they do not engage in transformational politics they become transactional and this is precisely what we want to avoid... That's why this bill is so important."
Dr. Vasu Gounden, ACCORD Executive Director opening the seminar
"Coalition governments should indeed reflect the will of the people and not be representative of elite deal making amongst parties."
Parks Tau, former Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and newly-appointed Minister For Trade and Industry.
"Ensure that policies are implemented in the best interests of the people. Trust, respect, and generosity are very important elements in coalition government agreements."
Mark Garrett - Director General, Law Society of Ireland
"Effective legislative measures can help in maintaining coalition governments, as well as conflict resolution mechanisms."
Refiloe Litjobo - Lesotho Ambassador to South Africa
Speaking at the opening session of the timely seminar, Tim Reilly, Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Ireland in South Africa, said as an outsider and a political junkie, it has been "an extraordinary thing to follow South African politics for the last three years."
Politics here, he continued, "really is unique. A product of an awful and yet inspiring history. It is full of fascinating characters and relationships too complicated for an outsider to ever fully understand."
The 2024 election, he noted, has provided "drama like no other and it can be tempting to get caught up in the cut and thrust and to forget the point of it all: to provide stable government."
Reilly added there is understandable anxiety about what lies ahead for South Africa.
"South Africa has had single party government for so long now that I think people forget the deep attachment here to the politics of consensus, born of long and difficult national negotiations like the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). So I don’t worry about the impact of coalitions on stability here. I expect that your experience will be much like ours… messy at times but ultimately entirely ordinary."
The outcomes of the seminar will form part of ACCORD’s public comments and contribution towards the legislative processes of the Coalition Bill (2024).