Case study essay:
As the country settles from arguably one of the most
consequential elections results our country has seen, questions have emerged
about how coalitions so ideologically diverse can work together. The elections
have revealed the resolve of voters to express their preferences of who should
be responsible for decisions about issues on their doorstep. While the
Constitution establishes municipalities for the whole of the territory of South
Africa, it constitutes government as national, provincial, and local spheres of
government which are distinctive, interdependent, and interrelated.
The convergence of these provisions in how the country is
governed yields an intergovernmental relations intensive government and
requires state organs to operate within the Chapter Three cooperative
government principles.
The municipal elections resulted in hung councils. The sum
impact of these hung councils when viewed from the perspective of hung
municipal budgets, is that a substantial portion of municipal budget spending
will be subject to continuous coalition government negotiations and
vulnerabilities.
The capability of the national and provincial state to impact
the local state will enter a phase where it will be mediated through policy
filters that advance one political hegemony or persuasion or the other,
save for where the provincial or national governing hegemony is of the same
political party.
The impact on policy intents, how these policies are
spatially prioritised, whether the the success in the delivery of intents is
recognised, and the extent to which government will use such progress as party
political victories, will be both unprecedented and defining in how coalition
government cooperation matures in South Africa.
The rise of genuine opposition politics in South Africa has
firmly established a context where the Constitution’s schedule 4 and 5
functional areas of concurrent or exclusive legislative or otherwise competence
will henceforth be expected to co- exist with voter power instead of being
fundamentally utilised to advance a party’s prerogative that are not voter
sanctioned. As the new democratic order assumes its government ‘of’,’ by’, and
‘for’ the people, a context of competing for approval to govern by voters will
force innovation in how a centralized national government will relate to the
local sphere of government.
The way intergovernmental relations (IGR) were handled
previously left local government to not only assume a life of its own but
expose policy ambiguities and uncertainties that put the sensitive issues of
fiscal reform and federalism back on the agenda. The ‘family-members-only’ IGR
system and practice apparent in the uncharacteristic application of section 100
and 139 intervention mechanisms liquidated national government’s capability to
negotiate with other spheres as equal before the law organs of state envisaged
in the chapter 3 cooperative government principles.
The reach of the power of the Constitution, its rule of law
basis, and the spirit of the cooperative government principles was for a while
limited by the unfortunate ‘family-members-only’ approach to intergovernmental
relations. The impact of this, though neutralisable, will be felt in the
posture of ‘provincial-governments-in-the-family’ towards the new and
‘voter-imposed’ ‘non-family-member-municipal-jurisdictions’ relationships and
relations that have entered the local sphere of government.
QUESTION 2 (15 Marks)
In
the narrative it is argued that the capability of the national and provincial
state to impact on the local state will enter a phase where it will be mediated
through policy filters that advance one political hegemony or persuasion or the
other, save for where the provincial or national governing hegemony is of the
same political party.
Describe
the developmental agenda
of intergovernmental relations and cooperative governance for local government.
Using examples from the narrative