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- Smaller parties are furious and are questioning the relevance of the national dialogue on coalitions, under way at the University of the Western Cape.
- This comes after Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance Parks Tau told the gathering that legislation on coalitions had already been drafted.
- Several parties said the gathering was an expensive talk shop.
Discussing proposals for coalitions reform at the national dialogue on coalition governments when legislation has already been drafted, makes a mockery of participating, opposition parties have said.
This came as Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance Parks Tau told the gathering, under way at the University of the Western Cape, that a Bill on coalition governments had already been developed.
But his words raised the ire of smaller opposition parties, which argued that they went against the very core of what the dialogue was meant to achieve – creating a framework on coalitions.
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa wrote to Mashatile to express his concerns.
"As we understand, the Bill has been initiated by the department, whilst it should be an outcome of broad political consultation. It would appear that all the participants in this national dialogue are made to participate in a process that has a forgone conclusion," he said.
READ | It is ANC and DA vs small parties in national dialogue on coalitions
According to Tau, the process of drafting the Bill had already commenced and was expected to be finalised by the end of the year.
Holomisa said several political parties, mainly those not represented in Parliament, were excluded from the process.
"It is difficult to believe that a government department would go ahead with the labour-intensive and costly exercise to draft a Bill without Cabinet's blessing. Given the views on coalition governments initially expressed by the secretary-general of the ANC, Fikile Mbalula, and those later expressed by Deputy Minister Tau, it is safe to assume that the Bill has, firstly, already taken into account the ANC's basic ideas and secondly, it does not take into account the majority of opposition parties' views on most issues, for example on the issue of thresholds," he said.
On Friday, the divisions between the ANC, DA and smaller parties were visible.
The DA and ANC were the only parties in support of electoral thresholds when forming coalition governments. Smaller parties vehemently opposed the idea, arguing that it excluded them from democracy.
Good secretary-general Brett Herron said it was clear that the ANC and DA had already made their own behind-closed-door coalition deal.
READ | ANC open to 'grand coalition' with DA in local govt but 'we are not there' nationally, says Mbalula
"Although parties are entitled to differ on how best to support coalition governments, and the government is entitled to govern and introduce legislation like this Bill, the existence of the Bill was a surprise turn of events and raises questions about the purpose of the dialogue," he said.
Herron labelled the imposition of a legislated threshold as a violation of the spirit and letter of the Constitution.
"When we made that statement, we did not know that it was a done deal, already in a Bill, intended to protect the ANC and DA from electoral threats from their own fragmentation. The ANC and DA agree that electoral thresholds should be factored into the creation of coalition governments," he said.
ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said the dialogue was pitched as an engagement across the political spectrum to feed into a legislative process.
"ActionSA flagged the issue in our representations to the national dialogue that the last ANC-majority Parliament is not the right place for such legislation to be considered. The future of coalitions will not be served if a Bill has been written by officials aligned to the ANC, with the intention of using the last ANC majority to protect its interests before losing its majority next year," he said.
