THE EFFECT OF A COALITION GOVERNMENT ON SERVICE DELIVERY IN SOUTH AFRICAN MUNICIPALITIES

Abstract

The South African local government sphere has faced many challenges of a failed coalition between leading political parties. This is not a desirable situation in South Africa; hence, more citizens depend on local government for civic services, as the local government is the closest sphere to the local communities. The failure of the formed collation for the quest to govern local municipalities in South Africa undermines the urgency of effective and sustainable public service delivery throughout the country. The South African local government has witnessed many services delivery protests due to poor public service delivery, erupting political parties’ coalition is the last thing needed in this field. The eruption of coalition between the political parties symbolises the battle for dirty political games that does not have the interest of the public in the agenda of these political parties. Politicians are voted into power by the public with the hope that they will put the public needs as priority. Unfortunately, politicians are more concerned about staying in power and are willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power, even if it negatively affects public service provision. The article aims to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of coalition government in service delivery and to determine what coalition government holds for the future of South African public services. The qualitative method will be adopted, using secondary sources and literature to meet the objectives of this paper.

Keywords

• citizens
• coalition
• local government
• political parties