Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Parks Tau says they were not trying to undermine the discussions on coalitions when they announced that a bill had already been drafted to deal with the issue.
He said when Deputy President Paul Mashatile announced that there was going to be a National Dialogue on Coalitions in Cape Town, they decided to hold back on the bill until the process was finalised.
Political parties were up in arms when Tau announced at the national dialogue that there was a draft bill to deal with coalitions.
The parties said it was a futile exercise to engage in the dialogue when the outcome has already been decided.
But Tau told Parliament during question time to Ministers in the Governance Cluster on Wednesday that the intention was not to undermine the process that was started by Mashatile.
Mashatile said they wanted to create a framework to govern coalitions to prevent unstable governments.
Since the 2016 and 2021 local government elections, the number of coalition governments in municipalities has increased substantially.
President Cyril Ramaphosa told parliament recently that they want to create stability in all spheres of government, and that is why they want to create a framework for coalitions.
Tau said they were not preempting the process led by Mashatile. But they have decided to hold back on the bill, and they will incorporate all submissions and comments after the process has been concluded.
“We were ready with the draft (Bill), but as soon as the deputy president announced that he is convening a dialogue on coalitions, we decided not to go through with the draft,” said Tau.
“I should say that when we announced at the National Dialogue that the legislative process with regards to the amendment of the Municipal Structures Act has started, it was not an intention to undermine the outcome of the dialogue. What we were saying to the dialogue is that we have a draft and we have already started working on the draft. The deputy president convened the dialogue, and we decided to hold back on submitting that so that we are able to incorporate all the comments that had been submitted. We are currently taking into account all the submissions and we will use that as a basis of updating the draft that we have before we take it to the process,” said Tau.
He defended the proposal on a threshold for parties to get elected into Parliament and provincial legislatures.
Some political parties have slammed the ANC and DA, who both support the 1% threshold, for allowing parties to get seats in Parliament and provinces.
The smaller parties said the 1% threshold was intended to cut them out of the political system.
But Tau said this was not true, and the threshold was to manage the situation.
“Is it intended to undermine the outcome of a democratic process? It is not. All it is saying is that, like currently, there is a threshold; there is no democracy that does not have a threshold. There is a threshold which says to qualify to be in Parliament, you require a minimum number of votes and that is a threshold. Not every party that participates in the elections gets into Parliament, even if they receive below the threshold. All we are saying is that this should be applicable to the establishment of the executive, but that is a discussion. We will put it to the public and Parliament, and everybody will be able to make their submission,” said Tau.
Mashatile said they were busy putting together the submissions from the national dialogue and those from the public.
This would be consolidated into a report that would be submitted to Parliament.
Mashatile told the National Council of Provinces last week that they wanted this process to be finalised before the elections next year.
Politics
