DA wants Parliament to draft coalition laws

Steenhuisen briefed the media on Thursday, where they announced a five-point plan to ensure the stability of coalitions ahead of the 2024 elections.

He says this was necessary as it is clear that the 2024 elections are likely to result in a coalition government at a national level.

The party want parliament to formalise coalition agreements, establish an independent Registrar of Political Parties and limit motions of no confidence among other proposals.

"The ANC is in a downward spiral and is currently taking the country down with it. The situation is very bad and getting worse, with poverty, service delivery failures, crime, corruption, debt and unemployment running out of control. We cannot afford to replace failing ANC governments - whether at the national, provincial or local level - with unstable, cumbersome coalitions.

“Yet this is exactly what happened in Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Nelson Mandela Bay metros after the 2021 local government election. In these metros, residents face the constant risk of disrupted service delivery. If the current state of metro coalitions is replicated at the national and provincial government level post-2024, it will lead to permanent instability, with South Africa possibly even becoming ungovernable," said Steenhuisen.

The briefing comes amid a move by the ANC in Ekurhuleni to remove Mayor Tania Campbell.

The party has written a letter to the speaker of the council, Raymond Dhlamini, to table a motion of no confidence against Campbell.

 Campbell, who is a member of the DA was elected through a multi-party coalition.

In a letter to the speaker, the ANC has accused Campbell of not consulting with communities on the issues of budgets.

"The Executive Mayor has failed to ensure proper consideration of public inputs in the development and final compilation of the municipal plans, budget and related policies by contravening her function as contemplated in section 56 (b) and (c), wherein she coerced the finalization of an IDP/Budget without evaluating and considerable incorporation of the public viewd and prioroty needs.

This then resulted in the resignation of the then MMC for Finance three weeks prior to the tabling of the 2022/23 IDP, SDBIP and Budget," wrote the ANC.

The party plans to table the motion during an ordinary council meeting at the end of October.

Mayoral spokesperson Warren Gwilt says the office is aware of the letter submitted to the speaker.

"The motion has been sent to the speaker's office, it must go through the programming committee, so we haven't seen it, if it passes through the programming committee, we can look at it and respond to the substance," says Gwilt.

The Ekurhuleni motion comes just two weeks after the DA's Mpho Phalatse was removed as the mayor of Johannesburg.

She was also unseated through a motion of no confidence.

The ANC’s Dada Morero replaced her.

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