Hello and welcome to the So What podcast, in which political economic analyst JP Landman
discusses the issues uppermost in the minds of South Africans. You can find a written
version of this content on JP's website, jplandman.co.za. I am Ruda Landman and I am your host.
These first few recordings were done at our dining room table, but we will soon be moving
into a studio. Hello and as always a very warm welcome to this conversation which accompanies
JP's latest newsletter. This one is dated the 14th August 2023 and it's titled, Coalitions:
Important Shifts. JP, you wrote about the coalitions for the first time in May, but
you say that three developments have happened since then. Tell me about that. Yes, absolutely.
Since May, three important developments or shifts. The first is that on the 11th of July,
the Incartum Freedom Party and the DA signed an agreement to cooperate in coalitions at
the local government level in the province of kwaZulu Natal. It's a unique agreement
in the sense that it's fairly detailed. It spells out 13 commitments that the parties
make and 15 priorities that they set for those municipalities where they will come into power.
The 13 commitments are very interesting. There's the normal stuff of commitment to the rule
of law and so on, but they're also interesting new noises or new approaches. For example,
they say that there will be a strict separation of party and state. All appointments will
be merit based. Then the normal thing which everybody says nowadays, corruption will be
eradicated and opposed and there will be a non-negotiable commitment to the rule of law
and constitutionalism. I think it is important in coalition politics that you set out what
the values are in which you base your coalition and that you have to agree on those values.
That they've done in their agreement. But then they go a step further beyond their commitments
and they list 15 priority areas where they will work in municipalities where they capture
the power. Now again, there are obvious things like water, waste management, sewage, public
transport and so on, but they're also more unusual items. For example, there's a very
clear commitment to spend 8% of the value of municipal assets on maintenance. Now this
is breaking new ground as far as local government levels go. We all know that maintenance is
a huge problem and this kind of commitment is essentially the thing that addresses that
deficit. There's also a clear commitment to review organograms of all municipalities,
to review staff complements and reviewing salary scales downwards before filling vacant
posts. So that is addressing another big problem that we have with local government and that
is that salaries and wages just gobble up all the available money. So the fact that
the DAA and IFP came to these agreements in respect of course to the Natal, I think is
quite an important step. Basically it meets the test that we articulated in May. What
we have to do in coalition politics in South Africa is to focus not on who will govern
but how we will govern. Those letters need to be switched around. This agreement between
the IFP and the DA takes us very far on the road to how government will take place instead
of who. When or how will this be put into practice? Well currently the IFP and DA are
controlling 13 local governments in KwaZulu-Natal. So it has already started. The second development
that you refer to? The second development happened at the end of July, the last weekend
in July, when the ANC Veterans League had the national conference which was attended
by some 460 delegates from branches from all nine provinces. So the Veterans League have
really in the last while established themselves by setting up branches. Now to be a veteran
of ANC you must be over 60 years of age and you must have served the organization for
40 years uninterruptedly. So it's quite a test. They had a national conference, the
president went there, he called the Veterans League the loud start of the ANC, but what
is very important is that they stated that a coalition between ANC and EFF is an unethical
coalition. Now those are very strong words to use and for a senior body like that to
say that explicitly and that unambiguously I think was also quite a strong development.
Since we've written this note in the last week, Fekili Mbalula, the secretary general
of the ANC was asked about this decision by the Veterans League conference and what was
very interesting is he handled it very diplomatically, something for which he is not known. And he
just said you know it's the view of the Veterans League and the views of all parts of the ANC
will be taken into consideration, but he did not denounce the statement by the Veterans
League that a coalition between ANC and EFF is unethical. So clearly it tells you that
there's movement, there's fluidity. The third development took place on the first
weekend in August, I think it was 4 and 5 August, when deputy president Po Maschettile
convened a conference on coalitions on the campus of the University of the Western Cape.
And there a very interesting thing happened, again Fekili Mbalula made a speech and he
left, he not only left the door open, he specifically said that the ANC could go into a grand coalition
with the DA on local government level. He emphasized that afterwards in meetings with
journalists that he was talking about local government, not about national government,
that fact remains the door has been opened. So if you put all these developments together
that has taken place in July and August, then I think we have seen considerable movement
in the body politic towards what I called in May a grand coalition of the ANC and the
DA. At the UWC meeting it was also quite clear
that the largest parties agree on a minimum threshold before a party can be represented
in local provincial national government. Do you see that happening?
Yes, you're quite right, there was clearly agreement between the two biggest parties
and of course the civilist opposition from all the smaller parties. I think that's very
predictable. Now nobody, neither the ANC nor the DA put any numbers on the table at the
Western Co-conference, but earlier in the year the ANC signaled that they would be in
favor of a 1% threshold. The DA signaled that they would be in favor of a 3% threshold.
So the number will, if it happens, it will land somewhere between 1 and possibly 2%,
right about. Now a 1% threshold would have an interesting impact. It will eliminate 8
of the 14 parties that we currently have in parliament, more than half. It will eliminate
in the Johannesburg metro 9 of the 18 parties currently sitting in the metro. In Swaranday
it will eliminate a whopping 10 of 15 parties and in Elstom and Delabay 5 of 13 parties.
So you can clearly see small parties representing a really small minority of the voters are
really influential because there's so many of them and that is what the reaction is against,
also from the public and that is what the DA and ANC are trying to address. Now of course
the ANC and the DA being the two biggest parties will benefit from such an arrangement and
they argue that it will enhance stability, which it probably will, and it will reduce
horse trading, which it probably will. The smaller parties again argue that it is inherently
undemocratic and you're doing something which is not in line with the wishes of the voters
and you deprive the voters of choice and they're also correct. So there are strong arguments
on both sides of this threshold decision. Now it's quite interesting to see what's
happening elsewhere. Internationally thresholds vary between 0.67, two thirds of 1% in the
Netherlands to as high as 6% in Moldova. The most common threshold is 5% and one finds
that in countries like Germany, New Zealand, Poland and Hungary. Denmark has a threshold
of 2% while the threshold in Sweden and Norway are sitting at 4%. So you're talking old
established democracies here. Scandinavian countries are hardly countries with immature
democracies and they have 2%, 4% and 5% thresholds. So there is an international precedent for
this. However, the question that one must ask is if you apply the 1% threshold in South
Africa, parties like the African Christian Democratic Party and Al Jomar will be eliminated
from parliament. Do you really want to force these people to go extra parliamentary? I
mean that's what the consequence of a 1% threshold decision would be. Do you think that would
happen or would their voters be absorbed in the bigger parties? They have people who support
them. If their voters do not want to vote for other parties, then they are still there,
they're still around. But by denying them access to the legislature or to the town council,
you actually force them to go outside politics. And I don't think that's a wise idea. Can
it happen in time for the 2024 election? Probably not. No, definitely not. We've got, it's now
August, the election will probably be in May. If it is postponed for three months, that'll
take it to August, 12 months from now. It'll be very hard to get legislation through parliament
in 12 months. Parliament just doesn't move that quickly. So no, I don't think it'll happen.
In any case, even if it does happen, the legislation will be challenged in the constitutional court.
I mean, there's no doubt about that. Does our constitution say anything about this?
Yes, it does. In section 46 of the constitution, it says that an electoral system must in general
result in proportional representation. Now, what does in general mean? Is 1% does that
satisfy the in general requirement or 3% does it satisfy that requirement? That is something
on which the constitutional court will have to pronounce. And obviously they'll have to
consider it carefully. So no, I think the parliamentary agenda, the parliamentary timetable,
as well as constitutional challenges can make us fairly certain that it will not happen,
that there will not be legislation on the statute before next year's parliamentary elections.
You published this note on the 14th of August, but because of circumstance, we are only recording
this conversation on the 21st. The moonshot backed convention has now happened. Thoughts?
Yeah, it happened on 16 and 17 of August. For the parties participating, it was a huge
success. They proclaimed it as such. Seven parties. Seven parties in total. From my point
of view, I think there were some encouraging signs. The parties accepted the principle
that your representation in the coalition government is based on the votes that you
got. So there's a clear relationship. If you got 60% of the votes, then you will have
60% of the government. You got 30% of the vote, you'll get 30% of the government. Until
now, there was a lot of toing and froing about that. So having developed a consensus about
that, I think is quite a good thing. The fundamental problem remains how these seven parties will
get to 50% plus one. That is really the issue. If you take the current parliament, which
I think one must accept is no longer representative, but if you take the current parliament, their
total vote come to less than 30% of those seven parties. Only three of those seven parties
are sitting in parliament. The other four are outside parliament. So they must still
prove that they can actually get votes. We tend to forget that. We focus on the seven
and not on the three that have already made it into parliament. But I think it's fair
to say that ANC will get less votes than what they got in the present parliament. They currently
in the present parliament have 57.5% of the vote. Their share will probably drop below
57.5%. So will the other parties then pick that up? Where will it go? I can't see the
current seven parties going much higher than 35%. Not on current poll data as we have it
now. Obviously anything can happen in the next nine to 12 months, but I can't see them
going much higher than 35%. Now, if you want to take over the government, you need 50%
as one. And that's really the basic problem that faces the moonshot coalition. In May
you said that the most probable outcome would be that the ANC gets high 40s and that they
can then go into coalition with the IFP, which will take them over 50. Is that still your
view? Yes, I still think that's a possibility. But what has developed since then is this
agreement between the DA and IFP on the local government level. And one wants to now ask
the question, if you are a formal coalition partner in one province on the local government
level, can you in the national government go into coalition with somebody else? That
strikes me as a bit messy. And that strikes me as a bit sending confused signals to the
electorate. So I'm not so sure that that is as obvious as it was in May. In May, I think
it was quite clear that the ANC would prefer to take the IFP. I've never shared the view
that they will go to the EFF, which was in May the dominant theme from the chattering
classes. I just don't think I didn't think it then. And I still don't think so. I think
events have shown to us there's a lot of opposition to ANC EFF coalition. So I'm not sure that
they will necessarily get the cooperation of the IFP. And then the question is what else
they will do. But as I said in May, it all depends on the numbers. If you get 47, 48%,
well then two or three percent are enough to get you over the line. If you get towards
40%, well then it becomes much more difficult. And then the idea of a grand coalition certainly
comes to the fore much more strongly. But then the grand coalition would, following
your logic, would have to include all three of those parties, the ANC, the DA and the
IFP. Because what you said now about working with the IFP going into a coalition, or the
other way around actually, the IFP going into a coalition with the ANC at national level,
the same holds true for the DA. Absolutely. Yes, and I think you're right. I think the
ANC would also like to have the protection, if you want, of the IFP in a national, in
a grand coalition. They don't want to be exposed, have exposed flanks to the EFF and other parties
who can then attack them. So it is quite possible that it goes that way. But you know, it's
a year away. It's early days. It's very, very early days. Very early days. Just in almost
theoretical terms, the German ambassador was a guest speaker at the UWC conference. And
he made interesting points about how coalitions work best. Yes. So the German ambassador,
they made a speech and he relayed lessons that the Germans have learned of coalitions.
Now, you must remember the Germans have had coalitions for a very, very long time, many
decades, and not just on the national level, but also in the land in the provinces. So
they know about coalitions. And the ambassador shared that with the conference. And I think
a couple of them were very important. He said coalitions is about the politics of inclusion,
not exclusion. And I think that's a very important point for us in South Africa. We tend to emphasize
who we will not work with, not who we will work with. So that's a strong point. Coalition
is the art of negotiation, not the art of war. It sounds absolutely right, but a lot
of people don't practice that. Again, in our country, we like to go to war and use war-like
language instead of negotiating. Issues first, appointments later. In other words, how, not
who. Issues first, how, not appointments, who. That was an important message from him.
And then concrete policies must be agreed on in advance. Now that's exactly what the
IFP and the DA agreed in respect of KwaZulu-Natal local government authorities. A concrete program
of action, concrete policies that they will pursue. And then of course, trust is absolutely
critical. And for that you need transparency and openness. And again, that is where we
can learn from the Germans. Another interesting point about Germany, Rudi, is that after the
last elections, when Chancellor Schulz eventually became the Chancellor, the elections were
held in September. The government only took office and Chancellor Schulz was only inaugurated
in December. So there was a long time lag between the elections when the results were
known almost immediately and actually taking office. So what happened in that long time
lag? The parties negotiated agreements on how they are going to govern. Exactly the
kind of thing that we saw in respect of KwaZulu-Natal local government. So in South Africa, our
constitution at the moment only allows 14 days. 14 days after the election has been
certified by the Independent Electoral Commission, parliament must meet and at its first meeting
it must elect a president. The constitution is quite clear on that. So we've given ourselves
14 days or we have 14 days in terms of our constitution, while the Germans have taken
a couple of months to form a government. So that's something that we will have to also
keep in mind as we approach the possibility, not the inevitability, but the possibility
of a coalition government at national level. Can I just make one more point about coalition
forming? You know, I think it's quite clear that the majority of South Africans are not
radical. We see that from opinion polls, but we also see it from, we also saw it in the
2021 July unrest and we've seen it in various areas of our national life. Yes, there are
people who do violent things and do radical things and so on, but when the tire hits the
tire, South Africans are the middle of the road a lot. Now that implies that large numbers
of political party supporters are also middle of the road people and the logical conclusion
that a number of ANC supporters are also middle of the road people and therefore I think the
German message of coalitions is about inclusion, not exclusion. It's an extremely relevant
and important one. Bring together those people that can reinforce the democratic model. It
doesn't really matter in which parties they sit and they sit in most parties, not all
parties but in most parties. Bring them together. That is the message that we must take from
opinion polls and other data that tells us that South Africans are not really a radical
bunch. Many people worry, they are afraid, they have a fear that the junior partner in
a coalition will be swapped and in the next election just wiped out. Especially I think
DA supporters fear that. Is it legitimate? Well as one DA supporter said to me, the DA
will be dragged down by the ANC and I think that sentiment is fairly widespread. Yes,
I think it is legitimate. We saw it happening in the United Kingdom when the liberals went
into a coalition with the Tories and in the subsequent election the Tories trounced and
the liberals were wiped out. The counter example you find on the continent of Europe, Germany
for example, where there are small parties like the free democrats who regularly fall
below the 5% threshold, then they fall out of parliament, next election they come back
and they are above 5%, so they are represented and then they normally, not always but quite
often form part of some ruling coalition, yet they remain, they retain, they remain
independent and they retain an independent identity and political programme and so on.
So I think what one must learn from that is to be very clear on what you will agree to
and what you won't agree to. What are fundamental commitments or values that you as a party
have on which you are prepared to negotiate and which not. And again that is where the
case that in agreement between the DA and the IFP for me is so interesting. There are
clear commitments and there are clear priorities. That's the kind of model we need. The liberals
never negotiated that kind of agreement as far as I know in the UK. So it's all about
your identity and sticking with your identity irrespective of how big or small you are.
So I think that is something that can be overcome. The whole of Europe is run by coalitions and
there you've got big and small parties and they all face with the same problem and the
small parties survive, they don't disappear. So no, I think it's just a new style of politics
that we must get used to. In summary, so what? Well, for me the most important so what is
that the free development since May indicate to me that the ground is shifting as far as
coalitions go. Three months ago in May, a couple of months ago in May, beginning of
the year, there was a sort of a consensus among the commentary that there will be ANC-EFF
coalition and that is it. I don't think any of those people will now take such certain
views or positions on the coalition issue. The ground has shifted quite substantially
and what is happening in that shifting of the ground is that the parties of the middle
has got an opportunity to get together and to form a grand coalition of the middle, strengthening
the democratic centre. I think that opportunity now is bigger than what it was in May and
certainly much bigger than what it was in January. So what for the probably most pressing
area and that is local governments? The local government election is only in 2026, it's
now 2023. So must we now for the next three years carry on with this stumbling that we
have? Clearly not. So what I think is needed is an in principle agreement for a grand coalition
or a coalition between parties of the middle and they must come together and reconstitute
councils where you have this up and down all the time, of which our beloved Johannesburg
is a classic example. And if we can get the parties of the middle to take hands and join
together you can actually form very strong local governments, strong in the sense that
they represent 70% and two thirds of the voters. Then you can have administrative stability
and things can go forward. And that is a political agreement, you don't need legislation for
that. What you need is the political world to do it and then doing the hard work of negotiating
the political agreements and put them into practice. So that's the only way forward
that I see for local governments, is to use the three years until the next election to
establish such coalitions and then they will also have an impact the year from now when
we have the national election, it can have an impact on how a national government is
formed. Can I push you on do you think it might actually happen that people in local
government form solid coalitions and come to this kind of agreement? Well, what we hear
from the political arena is that people in Johannesburg are saying there will be a change
in government again quite soon. We've now had what was it eight mayors, eight years
or something, one year similar noises from Nelson Mandela Bay. It looks as if the DA
coalition in Twane is surviving in spite of attempts to topple it. So it does seem to
me that there is there as well, there's a kind of a shifting of the ground or shifting
of positions rather. And I think it's quite possible that it can develop years. I'm not
making a prediction, but you know, let's see what transpires over the next six months.
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