MICHAEL O’DONOVAN: Collective executive paves the way out of metro paralysis amid coalitions

After a series of votes of no confidence the executive mayor of Johannesburg was again removed from the post on Thursday. On Friday a new executive mayor drawn from a tiny religious party, Al-Jama-ah, was appointed to lead SA’s biggest city with a population of about 6-million.

Executive authority in the city now seems more fragile than ever before, since as long as no political party has a clear majority in council the post of executive mayor will be insecure. New coalition deals or by-elections could result in the new mayor being deposed at short notice.

Yet the post of executive mayor is extremely influential — changes in the mayorship invariably triggers the appointment of a new mayoral committee, for example — and any change immediately affects the objectives and priorities of the city. In all metros where coalitions are required executive mayors' positions are insecure and service delivery is held hostage to political interests.

The executive mayor system was adopted across virtually all SA's metropolitan municipalities where a single  party has a clear majority, and the system came to be entrenched in metros and smaller cities countrywide. However as the influence of the ANC waned, giving rise to the need for coalitions to govern SA's metros, the political instability that now typifies local government rose.

At the heart of the instability is not coalition politics itself. Bemoaning the need for coalitions is to condemn voters for reconsidering their political choices and blaming instability on their lack of political uniformity. Rather, the problem is the attempt by metros to run coalitions under what is largely an authoritarian system.

Chronic instability

Executive mayors have significant powers. They appoint members of the mayoral committee to assist them, but are not held to account by that committee. Executive mayors are meant to be held to account for how well the administration performs, and must report back to the city council annually. But they are mostly afforded immense latitude in how they execute city affairs.

This latitude and intermittent accountability makes the post of executive mayor pivotal to city business, and makes it a post that is highly desirable to those seeking power and influence. This heightens the competition for the post and gives rise to the chronic instability that is now evident.

The Municipal Structures Act allows for metros to be run under one of two primary systems. That featuring an executive mayor has become most prominent, but the less familiar alternative — that of a “collective executive” — remains an option. Under this system the city is run by an executive committee that assumes responsibility for managing city affairs and makes the important decisions. The post of mayor is largely ceremonial, and council decisions are taken collectively.

The legislation requires that the composition of the committee reflects the composition of council (and thus reflects residents' voting patterns). This ensures that all the main political parties participate in executive authority (and prevents executive authority being vested in political parties without significant support).

No dominance

Unlike the executive mayor system, the deliberations of the collective executives are open, as is the way members vote. That the collective executive thus promotes transparency we are able to hold representatives accountable. Moreover, the collective system removes the incentive parties have to destabilise the administration. When you are party to decision-making you have no incentive to propose a vote of no confidence in decisionmakers or replace the current executive.

In the past, various Metros (Cape Town and eThekwini, for example) have been run under collective executive systems. However, this has always been when no political party was dominant. When a party did become dominant it was expedient to revert to executive mayorships.

Hopefully our elected representatives in Johannesburg (and Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay …) will choose to put aside their lust for power and start working as a collective.

• O’Donovan, a freelance political analyst, is a lecturer in the Wits University department of international relations.