South Africa's local government elections augur tectonic democratic political changes

SOUTH AFRICA - In Brief 24 Nov 2021 by Iraj Abedian

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Over the past 48 hours, South Africa's local government councils have scrambled to meet the constitutional deadline for the establishment of their municipal governing structures. As reported before, the dominant African National Congress (ANC) experienced a much harsher than expected voter backlash during the election- and this was harshest in the metro regions. For the first time, the overall support for the ANC Alliance dropped below 50%. A blend of factors including poor performance in terms of service delivery, pandemic corruption, disregard for good governance and no credible signs of change at operational levels, contributed to the hammering that the governing party received at the polls. But more importantly, in the province of Gauteng with the most populous and the most important economic hub within the country, the ANC failed to secure sufficient support to lead the government at any of the key metropolitan centers. In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, the three key metropolitan centers of Johannesburg, the capital city of Tshwane (Pretoria) and Ekurhuleni ANC lost considerable voter support, and following a vigorous campaign by the minority parties of Democratic Alliance (DA), EFF, and ActionSA , all these metros are now gone to DA. The modus operandi of these three significant metro governments is based curiously on an "implicit coalition ", as opposed to an "explicit coalition agreement", among three parties of DA, ActionSA, and EFF. During the elections, these three had stated publicly that they would not enter into coalitions with each other. For example, DA had been loud and clear that any coalition with EFF would be a non-starter. And, EFF had ruled...