Pretoria - Tired of losing power in municipalities through motions of no confidence, the DA now wants to petition Parliament to minimise calls for these in the National Assembly, provincial legislatures and municipalities.
The party also wants Parliament to implement an electoral support threshold in these Houses to avoid small parties being able to table motions of no confidence and succeed.
This was expressed by party leader, John Steenhuisen yesterday when he tabled his party’s five-point plan to establish a strong coalition government after the 2024 general election.
According to Steenhuisen, setting a limit on the frequency of motions of no confidence would give the governing coalition an opportunity to govern without the constant distraction and threat of being removed. The move came as a surprise, as the DA is known for having called for more than five motions of no confidence when Jacob Zuma was president.
The party asked for the same motions in the Gauteng provincial legislature during the tenures of former premiers Nomvula Mokonyane and David Makhura. The DA’s call for the motion of no confidence against Makhura was due to be tabled in the legislature on Tuesday, but he has since stepped down as premier.
Insiders told Independent Media the latest move was prompted by the DA’s loss of power in one of the municipalities in the Western Cape and lately in Joburg, where its speaker, Vasco da Gama, and mayor, Mpho Phalatse, were removed through similar motions after less than a year in office.
The insiders also said the party was more angered by the fact that a motion of no confidence against Da Gama was proposed by the PAC, which had a single seat in the City of Joburg, and succeeded after support from the ANC, EFF and other smaller parties.
Yesterday, Steenhuisen told the media his party also wanted to petition Parliament to introduce a threshold of parties represented in a spheres of government. He said his party wanted to implement an electoral threshold of 1% or 2% (pending consultations with other political parties and broader society) for national, provincial and local governments.
“This would require a political party to secure 1% or 2% of the overall vote to qualify for seats in a legislature or council. Proportional representation electoral systems tend to encourage a fragmentation of politics into a large number of parties.
“In South Africa this is particularly extreme because a party can get a seat in a legislature with just 0.2% of the vote. Yet even a party this tiny, with minimal electoral support, can bring down a government if that party’s seat is needed to make up 50%-plus-1 in the coalition.
“As kingmakers, tiny parties can wield power far out of proportion to their electoral support. This makes them vulnerable to being bribed by larger parties that need their support to get into government, posing a huge risk to the stability of coalition governments,” Steenhuisen said.
He said tiny parties with minimal electoral support should not be able to determine whether the ANC or DA ran a government, saying that was a subversion of democracy.
“Yet this is currently the case. We have seen this play out in many local governments recently, most notably in Johannesburg last month. The effect will be even more disastrous at provincial and national level,” he said.
But the DA looks set to suffer another loss of control, of the Ekurhuleni council, following the ANC’s motion against mayor Tania Campbell.
Yesterday, the ANC filed the motion in Ekurhuleni and it will be tabled for a vote on October 26. The EFF is expected to support the motion. The EFF and ANC constitute a majority in the Ekurhuleni council.
Adding to the DA’s woes, in Tshwane, the EFF has already indicated its intention to join forces with other political parties to oust incumbent council speaker Murunwa Makwarela.
Pretoria News