Smaller opposition parties emerged from the national dialogue on coalitions angry after the DA and ANC proposed a threshold to regulate their participation in coalition governments.
The two biggest political parties say a threshold of 1% to 2% should be introduced as part of a proposed legal framework on coalition governments ahead of next year’s elections, which might have no outright winner.
But this has left the smaller parties fuming, some accusing the DA and ANC of ganging up to push them out of the political system.
The parties also expressed unhappiness when it emerged that government had already drafted a bill on coalition governments ahead of the talks convened by deputy president Paul Mashatile, saying it rendered the two-day talks “a sham and a farce”.
Based on the number of votes cast in 2019 (17.4-million), a threshold of 1% would kick a host of parties out of parliament, leaving only the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP and FF Plus.
Parties such as Mmusi Maimane’s Bosa and Patricia de Lille’s Good have now threatened to challenge the matter in the Constitutional Court should the ANC and DA get their way.
If you put a threshold then you are going to create a situation where votes are wasted
— FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald
The DA and ANC argue that a threshold is required to address the instability that has become synonymous with municipal coalition governments led by smaller parties.
The DA further argued that the 1% to 2% proposal was actually low, compared to countries such as Mozambique (5%), Rwanda (5%) and Türkiye at 7%.
Parties that rejected this proposal include the IFP, UDM, ACDP, FF Plus, Bosa and Good. Action SA was in full support. The EFF boycotted the dialogue.
The ACDP said a threshold would be “counter to the spirit of our constitution” and that the proposal was “a sledgehammer approach” to the problem.
The UDM said it was cautioning the dialogue against “over-regulating democracy” while the FF Plus said the threshold would disenfranchise voters of small parties.
“The voter will ask him or herself ‘does my vote count?’. They want to feel that their votes are counting. Now if you put a threshold then you are going to create a situation where votes are wasted,” said FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald.
Brett Herron, secretary-general of the Good party, also argued that the proposed threshold was undesirable.
DA leader John Steenhuisen denied the threshold was aimed at shutting out smaller parties.
“No, I don’t think it’s ganging up. I think to the extent that both of us as larger parties have experience in governance. We’ve made some practical solutions from our own experience from coalitions. We’re committed to making it work in the interests of all South Africans,” said Steenhuisen.
Maimane said his party would fight the matter all the way to the Constitutional Court should the ANC and DA ram it through.
“They are going to create problems because it amends proportional representation and that will be a question that has to be dealt with constitutionally, so we’ll deal with it on that basis,” he said.
Actions SA’s Michael Beaumont explained why the party supported the threshold.
“We don’t have any fear about our ability to meet the threshold and surpass it in any of South Africa’s nine provinces and nationally in 2024. As a matter of fact our representations here were in support of a threshold of 1% because you cannot have stable coalitions when you have dynamics like you have in eThekwini municipality right now where 15 one-seat parties are in council and managing coalitions in that manner is crazy,” he said.
We don’t have any fear about our ability to meet the threshold and surpass it in any of South Africa’s nine provinces and nationally in 2024
— Actions SA’s Michael Beaumont
Professor of public law at the University of Cape Town Richard Calland said it was time to introduce the threshold as proportional representation had allowed for the undeserved entrance of small parties into local government.
He said that should be avoided at national level, pointing out that proportional representation was only introduced in 1994 in the spirit of national reconciliation.
“Now, however, we need stability in governments. Now we’ve entered the era of coalitions and we need those coalitions to be as stable as possible.
“The problem is you have those individual who are kind of political entrepreneurs, who are simply using the system to get into it and then transact into positions. So I think we need to consider 1% or even 2% as a threshold to entry,” argued Calland.
Deputy president Paul Mashatile said while small parties had legitimate fears, there was no deliberate plan to push them out. “People do have legitimate fears, when you start talking about thresholds smaller parties think 'oh they want to eliminate us', so we need to look then look into that issue because that’s not the intention.
“People forget that in fact there’s a threshold just to get into parliament originating from the constitution itself.
“So we will then go back and say okay why are people worried about the threshold, do they think they will be eliminated, let's relook at it because we really don't want to leave people behind. So we didn’t bring them here to rubber stamp some agreement exists somewhere, there's none. There’s no grand coalition that is planned with the DA.”
