Deputy President Paul Mashatile has described the start of the national dialogue on coalitions as an important step towards building sustainable and stable governments.
He said this discussion was several years late and it should have been started many years ago as democracy was evolving in South Africa.
He said the discussion on building coalitions could culminate in legislation, but they want all political parties and other stakeholders to start engaging on the future of coalitions.
The issue of coalitions has been brought to public attention by disturbing scenes in municipalities where some of the decisions to remove mayors were not based on sound legal and political grounds.
Mashatile, who was opening the National Dialogue summit in Cape Town on Friday, said the future of the country depends on the outcome of engagements on these discussions.
“In reality, our deliberations over the next two days are several years late, in that, like everything else, our democracy has been continuously evolving, though with little collective reflection among the broad sections of our country’s leadership,” said Mashatile.
“Had we paused earlier to reflect on how best to promote and maintain consensus within our evolving democracy, we might have avoided some of the recent distressing scenes that have played out dramatically in some of our metropolitan municipalities,” he said.
The dialogue is being attended by most of the political leaders, diplomats and academics.
Mashatile also said those who are elected into positions are accountable to the electorate and not themselves.
When political parties are engaged in political fights, there was no service delivery.
This affected people who voted them into office.
“Those who govern also owe accountability to the people. Without accountability, the process of governance is compromised.
“Additionally, where parties battle it out, like the feuding houses of Verona, other things also get lost: among them, improving the lives of the people is often compromised, with negative impacts on the wellbeing of citizens,” said Mashatile.
Political parties are already preparing for coalitions after next year’s elections.
The ANC has said it wants an outright victory.
But after the local government elections the number of hung municipalities increased from less then 30 in 2016 to 81 in the last elections in 2021.
Many municipalities have been affected by unstable coalitions, with mayors not finishing their terms of office.
Political parties have said they wanted to avoid this at national level.
ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said this week the ruling party wants a party with most of the votes to lead coalition government.
IOL Politics