Even as voters delivered a snotklap to the ANC, whose support dropped eight percentage points to 53.91% nationally, Co-operative Governance Minister Des Van Rooyen maintained that the 2016 local government election had built on government’s foundation of “conspicuous progress to accelerate basic services for the poor”.

And the minister hauled out the stick, saying that if political parties failed to come to “arrangements to assist our people” with the required services, Section 139 of the Constitution provided for provincial and national interventions.

That constitutional provision allows an MEC responsible for local government to disband a council (leading to another election) or appoint an administrator, if the council cannot or does not perform its responsibilities. It’s a controversial move, but taken with the knowledge of the relevant cabinet minister, as one sphere of government intervenes in another. It has happened previously to sort out financial messes in a handful of councils countrywide, but not to resolve potential political stalemates.

It remains unclear why Van Rooyen would go straight to this constitutional provision. The 1999 Municipal Structures Act offers a different solution, should coalitions fail: an executive committee representing various political parties according to their strength in council, rather than a powerful executive mayor and his or her mayoral committee. The legal process for this would require a local government MEC to proclaim this move from executive mayor to executive committee system.

“The gist of the mater is legislatively and constitutionally there are appropriate tools to handle the situation,” the minister later added. “Section 139 is appropriate to intervene if municipalities are unable to provide services.”

The clock has started ticking on the 14 days political parties have to come up with the magic combination that would put them in charge. While the DA has already reached out to Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement (UDM) in Nelson Mandela Bay, and there is talk of talks with the Freedom Front Plus in Tshwane, it is understood that the Economic Freedom Fighters are not planning to rush anything.

By law there is a 14-day window after elections are declared before the first council meeting must take place. Called by the municipal manager, this first council meeting elects the council speaker, who then takes over to preside over the election of the mayor and others.

This time around it’s a little more complicated as the formation of new councils co-incides with various demarcation changes to reduce the number of local councils to 257, from 278.

Coalition talk and council seat number crunching started late on Thursday after the results from Nelson Mandela Bay showed the DA was in the lead and the ANC had no way to catch up. On Friday midday it emerged that the DA was also in the lead in Tshwane, and that the ANC would not have enough polling support in either Johannesburg or Ekurhuleni to control these metros outright.

With the largest population, economic activity and tax base, metros are the focus. But there are a number of other such councils across the country. Even in the Western Cape, where the DA took all councils the ANC had previously governed outright or in coalitions, there are eight where it is leading, but not in control. In Limpopo the ANC did not wait. On 5 August in a letter (subsequently posted on Twitter) it requested a meeting with the Freedom Front Plus to talk coalition in the Thabazimbi and Modimolle/Mookgopong councils to ensure it remained in control – and has a clean sweep of ANC councils across the province.

There are other dynamics, raising questions about the future of individual politicians. It wasn’t quite the anticipated easy walk to don the mayoral chains for the ANC’s Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate, Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Mzwandile Masina. With the ANC having clocked up 48.64% support, the party is shy of taking control outright and, depending on any conditions of a coalition, may not clinch the executive mayor’s post. Masina, who is also the regional ANC chairman, was nominated in first spot on the proportional representation list after a process that saw the ousting of former mayor Mondli Gungubele who has a solid track record in council. Would Masina stay on as an ordinary councillor? He was prepared to take a pay cut from his deputy minister’s R1.9-million a year to an executive mayor’s just over R1.2-million pay packet. Metro councillors’ incomes dip below R1-million a year.

Tshwane ANC mayor candidate Thoko Didiza is also at a career crossroads, just weeks after her last-minute nomination sparked protests that left several people dead and numerous shops looted across the administrative capital. If the DA manages to put together a governing coalition, she’s not going to be mayor. A search on the list of the ANC’s Tshwane councillor candidates on the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) website did not bring up her name. This effectively opens the door to an easy return to Parliament, where she’s been one of three house chairpersons in the National Assembly.

Ironically, Didiza’s return to Parliament would cost the Freedom Front Plus, which could play a role in clinching opposition control in Tshwane and at least another formerly outright ANC-controlled metro. It is understood the ANC’s pre-election rejig across spheres of government and geography planned that once Didiza got the Tshwane mayoral chains, the Freedom Front Plus would be allocated her parliamentary position.

Strategically, such a reshuffle would have isolated the EFF on the opposition benches by silencing opposition complaints that the ANC since the May 2014 elections had claimed all parliamentary leadership positions. This is a sore point often raised in the terse and tense political contestation in the national legislature. Previously, there have always been at least one opposition house chairs.

There could be further political einas in the days to come as political parties mull their demands, and options, in the variously required coalition arrangements. DM

Photo: David Douglas Des van Rooyen, then the new South African Minister of Finance, delivers a speech after being sworn in at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, 10 December 2015. EPA/ELMOND JIYANE