On the threshold of change — coalition dialogues could define the future of SA’s democracy

7 Aug 2023

With the possibility of a coalition in the national government next year, SA faces a choice: greater democracy or more stability. Now, the two biggest parties, the ANC and the DA, may try to impose minimum representation thresholds for Parliament and councils. The only recourse of smaller parties would be to fight this in court — a fight likely to lead to increased political and legal turmoil ahead of next year’s elections.

On Friday and Saturday last week, Deputy President Paul Mashatile hosted a National Dialogue on Coalition Governments. The aim was to have party leaders, civil society groups and experts under the same roof to find ways to improve the way coalitions work in South Africa.

All political parties were invited and the EFF was the only party in Parliament to stay away. This is intriguing (though not surprising, considering Julius Malema’s political style), as the EFF may turn out to be a key player after next year’s polls. Malema will be trying to keep all of his options open and could have felt that any comments by his party at this gathering limited those options.

In another not-surprising detail, African Transformation Movement leader Vuyo Zungula gave an address in which he condemned the entire event and walked out.

Within hours of the national dialogue starting it was already clear how the arguments were lining up for those who remained.

Both the ANC and the DA say there needs to be a way to improve the stability of coalitions and prevent smaller parties from holding the balance of power. Both have suffered from this in the past, with smaller parties appearing to sometimes hold them to ransom.

They propose that there should be a threshold — a minimum amount of votes — for parties as a whole (and not just individual members) to get a seat in Parliament or on a council. The implications of this have been considered in the past, with the minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Thembi Nkadimeng, suggesting that even a 1% threshold would dramatically reduce the number of parties represented in councils. In Joburg, it would probably remove about 20 of 30 parties in that city’s council.

The ANC and DA suggest this would lead to better, more stable governance and reduce the horse-trading prevalent in councils.

They also say that the current situation, where a tiny party (often a party built around a single personality) holds the balance of power is not democratic. Why should a party that receives a tiny fraction of the vote decide who is to govern for the majority?

As Municipal IQ’s Kevin Allan has pointed out, Cope’s Colleen Makhubele was able to hold the position of Speaker of the Johannesburg City Council after winning just 0.22% of the vote (less than one-quarter of 1%). At one point, five of the 10 members of the mayoral committee were from smaller parties.

By any understanding, this is not democracy. It is certainly not majority rule.

Ever-shifting balance of power

The ANC and the DA also raise the spectre of what could happen were there to be a large number of smaller parties in the National Assembly next year, with the balance of power changing almost on a daily basis.

Of course, the ANC and DA are among those who stand to gain the most from effectively shutting out smaller parties.

The smaller parties, correctly, see this as an existential threat. They may literally cease to exist if this happens.

For example, Al Jama-ah, which currently has its second mayor in Joburg, could well have no representation at all under such a proposal. It has joined other smaller parties in opposing such a move.

They argue that imposing such a threshold is undemocratic and would limit the number of voices in our legislatures.

On Monday morning, on SAfm, the Al Jama-ah leader Ganief Hendricks argued that Helen Suzman had been the only representative of the Progressive Party for many years in the apartheid Parliament. She was able to use this position to great effect and shone a spotlight on the injustice of the system.

Hendricks contended that the ability of one person to use such a position to fight against government wrongdoing and injustice would be lost through the imposition of a threshold.

Professor Steven Friedman has averred that imposing a threshold is effectively a move from the bigger parties to use their current advantage to cement their commanding positions for generations to come.

While this is a powerful argument, there is a counter-argument to it: our system already has a threshold in that only parties that get more than a certain number of votes can be represented in the first place — they have to win their seat at an election.

And then there is a suggestion by Ebrahim Fakir that while a representative threshold should not be imposed, there could be a threshold for a party to be represented in the executive.

In other words, tiny parties would still be represented, but could not actually be a part of coalition governments unless they received, for example, 10% of the vote.

The allure of underhand approaches

While this has merit and should be considered, it does have at least one drawback.

If parties are not able to be part of coalitions, but can vote in Parliament (or a council), they will be vulnerable to underhand approaches. One can imagine the deals that could be struck; a party that passes the threshold in Joburg could suddenly be given a key position by a party desperate to win a vote in the National Assembly. Or hard cash could be handed over in return for votes.

Meanwhile, in the National Assembly, the ANC and the DA between them probably have more than enough votes to pass whichever measures they agree into law. And, considering that they both feel strongly about this, they may be able to prioritise this bill over other, perhaps more pressing, parliamentary business.

This raises interesting questions.

Is it correct that the two biggest parties in SA are able to gang up against all the smaller parties?

And yet, if one views this through the support these parties have won rather than the number of parties with voices, they represent (together) about 77% of the votes cast in the general elections in 2019. So should they not just represent the majority view and go ahead?

Should they do this, the smaller parties will only have the Constitutional Court to turn to in a bid to oppose it. Judges would then have to decide on a massive change to our political system just before a crucial election.

Another big legal challenge that will come before judges in the months ahead of that poll is to the disastrous Electoral Reform Act, which is supposed to regulate how independent candidates will contest in the polls.

While there are huge concerns about what could happen ahead of the elections, it is also worth considering how important this weekend’s gathering was.

Instead of shouting at each other, political party leaders met to soberly discuss a way forward.

That, at least, gives us some hope for the future. DM

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South Africa

Ever-shifting balance of power

The allure of underhand approaches