With political parties gearing up for national and provincial elections in 2024, is the state of local coalition governments a sign of what’s to come?
With political parties gearing up for national and provincial elections in 2024, is the state of local coalition governments a sign of what’s to come?
Here’s why SA’s youth are reluctant to vote in the upcoming 2024 provincial and national elections, as the IEC declares the final voter registration weekend.
Cognisant that fixing governance in South Africa is no small feat, the eight parties in the Multi-Party Charter of South Africa hosted a gathering of various civil society organisations to get their take on how South Africa’s political landscape needs to change.
The City of Johannesburg’s new Speaker, Margaret Arnolds, grew up in Eldorado Park and is no stranger to politics, with a string of past political allegiances that include the Inkatha Freedom Party and African People’s Convention. Now with the African Independent Congress, she hopes to bring stability to the city and while she understands where the distrust comes from, she has appealed to residents to give her a chance before passing judgement.
Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie is adamant that the party will not change its stance on Israel’s war on Gaza simply to maintain its coalition with the ANC. In the same breath, the party continued its anti-foreigner rhetoric, with McKenzie calling for mass deportations of ‘illegal’ immigrants.
While coalitions in many municipalities continue to cause instability, Ray Hartley and Mills Soko argue that they can help guide the country towards a positive future if they draw on the strengths of various political parties.
The DA leader, John Steenhuisen, recently removed Ghaleb Cachalia from his shadow Cabinet because he defied party discipline with a comment about the Israel-Hamas war. This highlights how parties that contain people with diverse views, identities and faiths find certain controversies very difficult to manage. At the same time, other parties, such as the ANC, Al Jama-ah and Cope, appear unable to discipline their members at all.
Public safety MMC Mgcini Tshwaku says EFF councillors have been able to work well with the ANC and other political parties in the City of Joburg, but if the partnership ends he and his colleagues will accept it.
With the Electoral Commission’s public suggestion this week that next year’s polls should be as close to May as possible, we may now be less than seven months away from an incredibly contentious election. While the ANC has already started campaigning through its ‘Manifesto Review’ tour, opposition parties are now adjusting how they work together. Chief among these are the parties who have joined the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa, led (sort of) by the DA. But other groups are also drawing closer together.
The ANC National Executive Committee has ratified a decision which is likely to see the party cut ties with the EFF and Patriotic Alliance at the local government level.
Despite the release of a poll suggesting that an IFP-DA coalition will win more votes than the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal in next year’s general election, the party’s provincial leader maintains the party is ‘unstoppable’.
Another day, another chaotic sitting of the Johannesburg City Council, starting with a new motion proposed to dissolve the council, which has pitted the DA against its new Multi-Party Charter partners over at ActionSA. Meanwhile, sushi king Kenny Kunene has been catching flak for supplying a bucketful of Champagne at an office party. Who can blame Mpho Phalatse for quitting politics to go back to medicine?
The powerhouse city of Johannesburg would be a good testing ground for coalition parties to prove their mettle.
The formation of the Multi-Party Charter for SA has the potential to be the start of a massive new dynamic in our politics. While there is still a great deal of work to do, this group could lead to real change. Still, the full impact may only be felt in six years, rather than in next year’s general election. And decisions around whether to include parties like the Patriotic Alliance could fatally wound the formation before it gets off the ground.
All parties involved in the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa signed a pre-election agreement, which covers their vision, priorities and shared governing principles. They also made decisions on power sharing, which will most likely benefit the DA as the biggest party in the potential coalition.
On the first day of the national convention on coalitions, ActionSA appeared to score a victory by inviting the Patriotic Alliance to participate in further talks on how a broad coalition could unseat the ANC after the 2024 elections.
Following weeks of discussions, seven opposition parties vying to take power after the 2024 elections are set to participate in a national coalition convention in Kempton Park. Who will be appointed to lead the ‘Moonshot Pact’ will be a key discussion point.
Politicians on the campaign trail for the 2024 general election will promise voters the stars and the moon. But Budget rules and processes leave little wiggle room — also if, as many pundits and pollsters predict, a coalition government takes over.
Now that he has been re-elected as the leader of the DA in Gauteng, Solly Msimanga is vying to become the party’s candidate for premier in the 2024 elections.
When it comes to tackling the instability inherent in coalitions, legislation is only a small piece of the puzzle – shifting political culture is the largest. South Africans will have to stomach some short-term instability and, if this culture is to evolve, vote for the adults in the room when it comes to election time.
My mandate is to persuade as many credible parties as possible to establish a joint vision for South Africa based on shared values and get the coalition ready to govern at a national level. Once the agreement is concluded, I will exit.
News that the ANC government has quietly been working on draft legislation to stabilise coalition governments in the local sphere has caused some consternation among smaller political parties who attended the ‘national dialogue’ on coalition governments held at UWC over the weekend.
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