African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Fikile Mbalula argued, on Friday, that the legislative framework to regulate coalition governments should be put in place to safeguard democracy, sustainable development and service delivery.

Mbalula spoke at the two-day gathering of the National Dialogue on Coalition Governments held in Cape Town where he said the squabbles in current coalition governments impacted on service delivery in municipalities.

About 80 municipalities and metros in the country are in a coalition arrangement. 

“Having observed the disturbing developments in hung municipalities and metros, affected communities and citizens will have good reason to believe that, collectively, as political parties, we are only interested in power politics instead of addressing their needs. This dialogue should, through a sufficient degree of consensus, prove that we are truly and generally committed to stable functional developmental and accountable government. We must, therefore, strive to come out of this dialogue with a framework that will lay a basis for new legislation,” said Mbalula.

Among the measures proposed by the ANC for a framework, he said, were that coalitions must be based on a common minimum programme, or a “citizens charter”, that focuses on measurable targets for service delivery and development in the communities.

Secondly, coalition partners must commit to shared values, stability, accountability, ethics and integrity, Mbalula said.

The ANC also wants the party with the most votes to lead said coalitions and fill executive positions proportionally.

The ANC is also seeking a threshold relating to what amount of electoral support qualifies a party or candidate to be part of councils and coalition governments.  

The ANC hopes that such a framework will restore confidence to frustrated communities that have at times resorted to service delivery protests.

He reminded other political parties that the ANC was not in attendance to discuss the upcoming elections in 2024.

The ANC secretary general said the ANC was concerned about the coalition chaos in municipalities and that the framework should help to resolve it.

Mbalula added that his party was confident that 2024 would result in none of the parties having obtained an outright majority to govern.

He reiterated that the coalitions in their current “free floating institutional set-up” were not working for the people and were not held together by any transparent safeguards.   

“The health of our democracy should be measured by the well-being of citizens as well as stability and ability of democratic institutions to serve the people even when there are changes after every five-year electoral cycle,” he said.