NICHOLAS WOODE-SMITH: Coalitions still the way to go, despite recent instability — survey

Despite the chaos, drama and less-than-stellar performance of the multiparty coalition leading Johannesburg, voters still believe a grand coalition of opposition parties is the best hope the city and the country have to recover and prosper.

The Social Research Foundation conducted a survey in October and November 2022, asking non-ANC voters about their perception of the coalition government. The survey randomly selected 610 demographically and geographically representative, registered voters. The survey had a margin of error of 5%.

It was conducted in the wake of a string of tumultuous events affecting the coalition throughout 2022. The opposition coalition, elected in 2021 and led by the DA’s Mpho Phalatse, was originally seen as a breath of fresh air.

Since the DA’s last attempt to govern the city under Herman Mashaba, the city had been faced with ANC governance and a string of short-lived mayors. This created instability in the leadership of a city already crumbling under lack of service delivery, crime and infrastructural decay.

But the opposition coalition didn’t deliver. Rather, it fell into a stalemate of infighting, back-stabbing and vendettas, overwhelming any desire to sort out Johannesburg’s host of problems.

Due to this conflict Johannesburg still doesn’t have a city manager – and in effect has no-one to take care of the administration of the city. The originally agreed upon DA speaker was ousted in a fit of back room deals and power plays. And the mayor herself was almost illegally ousted from office by members of the coalition, some of whom were found to have accepted bribes to turn against the coalition mayor.

While the coalition fought itself, voters were left feeling betrayed and confused. The Social Research Foundation’s survey found that most opposition voters believe the coalition did not perform better than the ANC government. This is to be expected, as not much could happen while the coalition was so unstable.

When it comes to apportioning blame and diagnosing the cause of the coalition collapse, the survey found that voters are generally divided and confused. Some 59% reported that they did not truly understand why the coalition collapsed. But there were attempts made to apportion blame to some events and parties.

More than 54% considered the Patriotic Alliance (PA) breaking away and voting alongside the ANC against the DA mayor to be the main cause of the collapse, while 57.5% considered Cope’s election as speaker with the help of the ANC and EFF to be a contributing issue.

Only 46.8% believed ActionSA breaking the coalition agreement and insisting that the IFP replace the DA speaker to be a contributing cause, and 56.2% said the DA refusing to share power within the coalition was part of the problem.

Among these contributing factors 25.9% of the sample of voters believed the DA refusing to share power is the primary cause of the collapse of the coalition. But the other causes are not far behind. It is clear that there is no consensus or clarity among voters of what really happened and who is truly to blame within the catastrophically chaotic coalition.

Across the board voters seem to perceive all parties as carrying part of the blame. And while there may be more nuance to the true state of affairs, it is a reasonable assumption that no member of the coalition was acting ideally. It takes two to tango, so to speak.

What is clear is that the ANC is the real winner as a result of the coalition collapse, with 40.2% of voters believing it benefited most from the chaos while 27.4% saying the DA benefited more and 12.8% believing ActionSA benefited most.

While the ANC wasn’t able to clearly oust the DA mayor it is the clear winner. These events have tarnished the reputations of the opposition parties and possibly irreparably damaged trust in multiparty coalitions.

But despite the chaos, infighting and continuing dire state of the city of Johannesburg, 69.8% of voters still support a grand coalition of opposition parties, perhaps because there is no other option.

No single party can broadly appeal to all voters. They all have their audiences, strengths and weaknesses. For the opposition to finally triumph and dethrone the ANC, the opposition parties do truly need to work together. They must stop competing over the same strongholds, and instead focus their energy and resources on taking votes away from the ANC.

And most of all, they need to behave for the good of the city and the country. Co-operation is key. Petty politicking and vendettas must stop. And if a party refuses to support the greater aims of a grand coalition, voters must punish them at the ballot box.

Only then will this country have a secure future.

• Woode-Smith is a political analyst, historian and author of the upcoming book 'SA: The Unconscious Empire'.