Africa-Press – South-Africa. The recent shenanigans in Tshwane are a mirror on politics without principles that have spread throughout the country. They serve as a warning to us about what we need to fix to avoid the collapse of the state, writes Siphamandla Zondi.
The Tshwane City Council has become a laughing stock, first because of the collapse of a governing DA-led coalition after just about a year in power. But also because the ANC-led coalition with a mayor from COPE with one seat in Council, Dr Murunwa Makwarela, is teetering on the edge.
The shenanigans we witness here are a mirror on politics without principles that have spread throughout the country. They serve as a warning to us about what we need to fix to avoid the collapse of the state.
It is no small matter that local government struggles to be stable in the capital city of the country when the commercial centre of our country, Johannesburg City Council, is also on tenterhooks. These are centres of our state showing signs of falling apart. These are ghastly symptoms of the local state struggling to transform into the promised developmental democratic state.
The stability and performance of the state at all levels, national to local, is central to our ability to bring about a society that the National Development Plan, Vision 2030, envisages. While democracy is healthy when there is a possibility of a regular refreshment or change of mandate, what we are witnessing is bickering and elite-driven reckless shifting of chairs.
Hold to account
Citizens are the sovereigns of our world; all power belongs to them. In all healthy political systems, citizens cede their power to a small group of elites to govern on their behalf. These citizens must expect that the governing elite will handle with great care the power lent to them for a few years for the purposes of protecting them from violence, hunger, poverty, injustice – and for providing services and opportunities for them to develop.
But this order of things works optimally if the citizens do not forget that they cede power; they do not surrender it to the political elite. So, they are vigilant enough to see when there is abuse of their power, when the political elite put their sectional interests over the public(s) interest. They then hold them to account for their conduct and cause them to correct their ways or lose power.
We all know what has happened in Johannesburg and now Tshwane as well. Ekurhuleni Metro is in a scare too. It has affected several smaller municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, one or two in the North-West and Western Cape, with the large number of municipalities ending up with hung councils post-November 2021 elections after failing to produce outright winners. This put a huge responsibility on every political party in council to design arrangements that ensure a stable, functional and effective municipality. These arrangements would, of course, be in the form of coalitions.
In Tshwane, after the elections, the DA managed to put in place a coalition of ActionSA, ACDP, Freedom Front Plus, IFP, and COPE with the DA councillor, Randall Williams as mayor and COPE’s Murunwa Makwarela as speaker. But a forensic report into an energy project to refurbish power stations and an Auditor-General’s audit report both pointed to irregularities valued in billions of Rands and suddenly, the mayor was a bone of contention among coalition partners. Facing an ANC motion of no-confidence, with some coalition partners threatening to vote for it or abstain, Mayor Williams gave in and resigned in February 2023.
Makwarela who took over on 28 February, would resign less than two weeks later over an insolvency scandal. The DA worked hard to produce this resignation after its candidate failed to win the 28 February race for mayorship. The ANC was so dismayed that its plan to instal mayors from small parties backfired badly that it issued a strong condemnation of the individual, just as his own party, COPE, did. Now the jostling for candidates to become mayor has begun and is linked to decisions about which of the two coalitions will have their way. None is a clean alternative at moment. The fall of the two mayors from the DA-led coalition and the current challenges in the ANC-led coalition are scandal linked. It is close to a zero-sum game now. No angels in the ring.
Wisdom needed
What will decide the fate of Tshwane is political parties. They will decide either on self-interests or on the basis of public interests, that comes of the implementation of the Integrated Development Plan, which hangs on the hopes for improved local economic development, service provision, security and stability in the city. Greed and egos will lead us deeper into malaise, but wisdom will rescue us.
What does wisdom look like in this case? At the very least, the coalitions must focus on getting the city stable by agreeing on arrangements that are ethical, just, inclusive and focused on the implementation of plans. They must agree on the details in the coalition arrangements about how internal conflicts and working relationships will be managed. The parties must also vet their candidates very well with the help of experts in background checks, credit records, criminal records and profiling.
The leading parties ought to keep in mind they need every small party. There is a risk in either bullying small parties or passing the buck to them through these big positions. Parties must communicate very clearly to the public about how they plan to run a strong job-focused city government.
The city manager must ensure the city administration is seized with the accelerated implementation of plans since people cannot wait any longer while political parties play political chess. The province and national COGTA need to watch this with care and advise where necessary on stabilising city governance.
It would be catastrophic for the image, standing, public confidence, and service delivery if the shenanigans were allowed to go on. With national elections coming next year, this could further erode public confidence in public institutions and leadership.
– Professor Siphamandla Zondi is the Director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg
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