Deputy President Paul Mashatile has called for political parties to attend a summit on coalition governments that will prepare for elections next year.
Mashatile said they wanted a party with most of the votes to lead a coalition instead of current deals where leaders from minority parties have been heading municipalities as was the case in Gauteng.
He said the ANC was not campaigning to lose next year, but they wanted to be realistic in case it fell below 50% and did not get an outright majority.
They have already seen the high levels of instability in municipalities where there are coalition governments.
They wanted to avoid that at national and provincial levels of governments, said Mashatile.
Mashatile said the Presidency was already leading a technical team that will draft a framework for coalitions to avoid instability.
The MECs in provinces are also busy with technical work.
The Presidency with the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Thembi Nkadimeng, will host a dialogue with political parties on the framework on coalitions in the next two months.
Mashatile, who was answering oral questions in Parliament on Thursday, said the time to cut deals behind the scenes where parties with less votes govern was over.
It was time for parties with most of the votes to lead coalitions.
“The party that has won the largest votes in an election should be allowed to lead the coalition and the executive positions should then be allocated proportionally with the votes obtained by the coalition partners,” said Mashatile.
He added that this would be the basis to create stability in coalitions.
“The above-mentioned principle will then constitute the basis of the discussion at the national level, engaging in that dialogue where we can then come to an agreement on a national framework. We want to do this honourable members within the next two months. We are taking into account that there are elections next year.
“We don’t want to delay it. Working with the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs we will be inviting all political parties represented in Parliament to the dialogue on the principle of coalition government across all the spheres of government,” said Mashatile.
He said political parties would soon be asked to make submissions before the summit in the next two months.
“All the parties will start to be asked to make inputs and views to the technical committee led by the Presidency and Cogta to help develop a framework for coalition government which will consequently lead to develop legislation,” said Mashatile.
It is this piece of legislation that will help to shape the coalition government that will be put in place.
Current Affairs