The local government landscape in SA has changed drastically since the 2016 municipal elections.
Fragmented councils, multiple political parties, and coalition governments increasingly replaced the era of a single political party’s dominance.
On the surface, this transformation should be welcomed.
A multiparty system can strengthen democracy by requiring political parties to negotiate, share power, and listen to communities beyond their traditional political bases.
It can create opportunities for greater accountability and prevent one party from exercising unchecked political control.
But the reality unfolding is that many municipalities tell a more complicated story.
Coalition governments have exposed serious weaknesses in SA’s local government system.
Instead of providing co-operation and improved accountability, some coalition arrangements have become characterised by political instability, internal disputes, leadership changes and prolonged disagreements over who should control municipal decision-making.
This raises an important question: Can a coalition government succeed without changing how municipalities manage political conflict?
The answer to that becomes difficult to ignore.
Municipalities in SA have largely been designed around a political environment in which one dominant party could provide relatively stable political leadership.
Coalition governments, however, require a different political culture. This requires negotiation, compromise, trust and the ability to work with political opposition.
Winning an election is one thing; governing collectively is another.
Coalition partners often enter these arrangements with different political ideology positions, political interests, and expectations about leadership.
Without any clear agreements about how disagreements should be managed, ordinary political differences can quickly become governance crises.
The danger is that political competition can become more important than municipal performance.
Residents do not really care about which political party wins an argument in the council.
They care about running water, maintained roads, refuse collection, electricity, and whether municipal officials respond to their complaints.
For communities, the test of a coalition is not the number of political parties within the council, but rather the ability of parties to translate their political mandate into functioning local government.
The challenge is compounded by weak institutional mechanisms for managing coalition disputes.
Most importantly, coalition politics require goodwill.
Political parties should recognise that governing a local government institution is different from campaigning against one another.
Elections eventually end, but municipalities’ responsibilities continue daily.
A party which spends its time attempting to destabilise its coalition partners may achieve short-term political advantage.
Still, the local government and communities will pay the price in the long-term.
The country needs political parties that understand how to govern collectively.
The future of coalitions in SA will ultimately be judged not by the number of coalition agreements signed, but by the number of municipalities that remain functional, accountable and responsive to their communities.
The lesson is clear: coalition governments cannot survive on political will alone.
They require compromise, clear rules, effective conflict management, and an unwavering commitment to the communities they serve.
If such conditions are not established, political infighting will continue to spill from council chambers into municipal administrative functions and, ultimately, into the lives of ordinary citizens.
The challenge before SA is therefore not whether coalition government should exist.
It is whether the country can develop a political culture capable of making coalition governments work.
Xolisa Makubalo, Time on Task Lecturer, Department of Applied Management, Administration and Ethical Leadership, University of Fort Hare. This article was inspired by the publication I made with Dr Tando Rulashe and Nosipho Gwala.
