One of the most basic skills in politics is the ability to build coalitions. Politics is not a single-player sport. Even in a context where political contestations allow for people to be directly elected as individuals, an individual cannot elect themselves.
They must formally or informally coalesce with other people in society around a vision that makes them electable by masses of people. Building strong coalitions is not simply a matter of convenience. It requires an aligning of people’s ideas and interests with a common aspiration and a clear goal. The 2021 local government elections signalled important shifts in SA politics away from politics that centres on one or two big parties, to politics that is devolved and voters who want more in exchange for their votes than slogans and unfulfilled promises.
With only 12-million, out of a possible 40-million, voters showing up to cast their votes in November 2021, it is clear that political actors are struggling to connect with voters enough to build a shared sense of belief in their visions and plans for governance. Even with a record 325 parties and thousands of independent candidates to choose from, voters clearly do not feel party to the aspirations and goals of the people who seek to hold political office. Instead of showing strong support for particular parties, even the voters who did show up delivered 66 hung councils across the country.
Many voters feel alienated from politics. They see the political realm as something that concerns those seeking political office or who join parties. Politicians seem to be failing at building coalitions on shared interests within society at large.
With parties rife with factionalism and in-fighting, it seems parties are barely able to build strong intra-party coalitions. It thus should be no surprise that multiparty coalitions in local government are unstable. This is not because coalitions inherently do not work, but because coalition building requires work. When political actors fail at building coalitions, they are failing to execute fundamental skills in politics; the abilities to persuade, negotiate and put the shared interests ahead of their individual pursuits.
Since 2016, when many of the metros first became coalition governments, we have seen parties and individuals destabilise coalition governments through power struggles for positions and bargaining chips to be leveraged for unrelated political gain.
Who can forget the revolving door of mayors in Nelson Mandela Bay between 2016 and 2021 as single councillors from the UDM and the Patriotic Alliance became influential kingmakers and were swayed to change allegiances in votes for or against mayors and speakers of council?
Recently, an ANC-led coalition in Nelson Mandela Bay that relied on a single vote was booted out of power in favour of a DA-led coalition. In Gauteng, the coalition government formed rather haphazardly after the EFF unexpectedly voted with the DA.
Last week, the Johannesburg multiparty coalition were stunned when selected councillors from coalition parties voted with the ANC to oust DA council speaker Vasco da Gama. Rumblings can be heard of a possibility that the EFF is open to supporting the ANC to remove mayors and speakers in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.
The instability, and constant shifts in power cause to the effective functioning of governments is undesirable. In a country where voting patterns are signalling that voters are willing to spread power widely, it is important that coalition politics are managed much better, especially in the run-up to the 2024 national and provincial elections.
Coalition governments may be relatively new in SA, but they are common political practice in some of the strongest and most successful democracies in the world. The idea of multiparty coalitions in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria are examples for pre-election coalitions that have delivered stable national governments.
Countries such as Sweden and Germany have had national coalitions governing as a norm, with single party governments only experienced once in each country post-World War 2. After elections these countries allow a period of months to allow elected parties to form coalition agreements that will guide governance for that term of office.
The ability to build and maintain coalitions should be a marker of a party or person's ability to govern. It is easy to govern when everyone agrees, but the work of political leadership is about being trusted to hold space for and manage processes of persuasion, debate and consensus building that rally politicians and society at large around principles, ideas and programmes of action that serve the public good rather than petty partisan politics.
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