At what point does loyalty to a political party become disloyalty to the community in which we live?
It is an uncomfortable question. But when the taps run dry, sewage flows through the streets and municipal money cannot be properly accounted for, it is one we ought to ask ourselves before casting another vote.
Political loyalties have meaning. In South Africa, they often reflect deeply personal histories of struggle, belonging and hope. But past achievement cannot confer an indefinite entitlement to govern. Surely loyalty must carry some expectation that those receiving it will honour the trust placed in them?
As we approach the municipal elections, parties will again ask for that trust. We should examine how they have exercised it. And, given the experience of coalition government, we should ask what will happen to our votes once the counting is over.
The weakening of single-party dominance has created opportunities for greater accountability. Parties must negotiate, accommodate different perspectives and share authority. These are legitimate features of a multiparty democracy.
But the presence of more parties around a council table does not automatically bring the public closer to the decisions taken there. Much depends on what those parties negotiate for, what they agree to do and whether residents can hold them to their undertakings.
If negotiations revolve around who becomes mayor and which party receives which portfolio, where does the community’s mandate enter the discussion? What does a resident gain from a change in political leadership if the same service failures continue?
There is nothing inherently illegitimate about smaller parties participating in government. Their voters deserve representation. Nor does the largest party possess an automatic entitlement to govern alone when it has failed to secure a majority.
But every party exercising public power should be able to explain how its participation serves the public. Holding the deciding vote in a council creates a responsibility towards the whole municipality, beyond the interests of the party possessing it.
This is why the arrangements governing coalition formation deserve much greater attention.
Parties need sufficient time after an election to negotiate a credible governing programme. An agreement on infrastructure maintenance, financial recovery, administrative appointments and service delivery requires serious work. Rushed arrangements that settle the distribution of positions while leaving difficult policy questions unresolved invite later conflict.
Time, however, must produce something residents can assess. Coalition agreements should be published, with clear commitments, allocated responsibilities and measurable objectives. The community should know what the partners have agreed to achieve, who is responsible and how progress will be reported.
Why should residents have to guess at the terms under which their municipality is governed? These agreements concern public institutions, public resources and the conditions of people’s daily lives. Their contents should be open to scrutiny.
Publication must also be accompanied by a framework that makes the governing commitments binding and establishes consequences for failing to honour them. A document that can be quietly disregarded when political interests change offers residents little protection. Any amendments should likewise be disclosed and explained.
Parties should go further before the election by telling voters which principles will guide their choice of coalition partners. They cannot always predict the outcome or identify every eventual arrangement. They can explain their policy commitments, the compromises they consider acceptable and the conditions under which they would refuse to participate. Voters are entitled to make their choices with that knowledge.
Coalition agreements also need practical mechanisms for resolving disputes. Disagreement is inevitable where parties have different constituencies and programmes. The relevant question is whether they can manage it without repeatedly placing the municipality’s administration and budget at risk.
Agreed procedures for negotiation, mediation and the escalation of disputes would give partners a way to address conflict before it threatens the functioning of government. Residents should not bear the cost of every breakdown in relations between political leaders.
The same consideration applies to motions of no confidence. Councils must retain the ability to remove leadership that has failed. But that power should be exercised through clear, defensible procedures that discourage its use as a recurring bargaining device.
Requirements for sufficient support to initiate a motion, clearly stated grounds and appropriate voting thresholds deserve careful consideration. Any restrictions must preserve meaningful accountability. Stability has little value if it merely makes an incompetent or abusive administration harder to remove. The purpose is to give a functioning government the opportunity to govern while ensuring that failure can still carry consequences.
Even the best coalition framework will achieve little, however, if municipal administrations remain vulnerable to political interference. Engineers, financial officers and municipal managers need competence, professional independence and continuity. An infrastructure programme cannot sensibly be restarted every time the balance of political power changes.
Coalition partners should therefore commit to lawful, merit-based appointments and respect for the responsibilities of officials. Municipal departments exist to serve residents. Their staffing and operations should reflect that purpose.
Residents, in turn, need reliable information with which to assess performance. They are entitled to know how their money was spent, whether promised work was completed and what happened when misconduct was identified.
Audit findings, budgets and performance reports must be accessible and understandable. Community organisations, researchers, business associations and local media can help translate these documents into questions people can use when evaluating those seeking another term.
Responsibility within a coalition must also be traceable. Which party controlled the relevant portfolio? What decisions did its representatives support? Did its partners demand corrective action when problems emerged, or protect it to preserve their majority? Sharing power cannot mean sharing an excuse for avoiding responsibility.
This does not transfer the burden of municipal failure to residents. Those entrusted to govern remain responsible for doing so competently and honestly. But informed public scrutiny can make it harder for them to evade that responsibility.
For disillusioned voters, staying away may seem an understandable response. Repeated disappointment makes another promise difficult to entertain. But abstention leaves decisions about political power to those who participate.
The more demanding response is to judge parties by their conduct, question the arrangements they enter and reconsider support when the evidence warrants it. That scrutiny must continue between elections.
Our vote authorises others to exercise power on our behalf. We should therefore insist on knowing the terms under which they will exercise it, the commitments against which they can be judged and the consequences when they fail.
If the public disappears from the process as soon as coalition negotiations begin, we have reduced democratic participation to a brief appearance at the ballot box.
Our votes must carry further than that.
Nondumiso Sithole and Noleen Sukhessan-Dawson are the authors of the Inclusive Society Institute’s Occasional Paper, “The power of the electorate will count this time around: evaluating governance, coalition politics, and civic agency in South African municipalities”, from which this article draws.