Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

12 November 2026

2-minute read

The era of a single dominant party in South Africa has come to an end with coalition politics here to stay, as confirmed by SA’s fragmented election process.

In his opinion piece, economist and public speaker Chris Hart proposes independent vetting, forcible agreements and retired judge arbitration to make local governments more stable.

Speaking to Ml Sulaimaan Ravat on Sabahul Muslim this morning, Hart says that we are already seeing parties becoming introspective in their own personal interests and pushing forward their own electorate. He adds that electing candidates from different parties into technical positions can be an “exaggerated representation” which becomes a sort of “horse-trading,” resulting in putting “forward the people that suit the politics but not necessarily the position.”

Hart suggests a legislative framework where all the parties to the coalition should put forth qualified and suitable candidates for the different departments within their municipality. This should then go through a formal vetting process to filter out the worst candidates and keep the best ones on board.

While the running of departments is subject to weak leadership and poor-quality decisions, Hart advocates for politicians to start paying attention to the quality of people they put forward. He says that if this process is overseen by an independent body, it will eliminate the kingmaker, and parties will be motivated to find “the best people for the job rather than the best people for the politics.”

Furthermore, even though debating is healthy and should be encouraged, coalitions do fall apart for “political reasons” because the people within them are vying for positions and playing a game of one-upmanship when it comes to filling mayoral positions. Hart says that while there is some sort of influence in running of the mayor’s office, there ought to be penalties in place for those who break coalition agreements. Once coalition discussions between parties begin, “the voters’ interests at this stage are completely ignored,” says Hart.

According to Hart, there should also be a mechanism in place to resolve deadlocks. When it comes to issues of corruption, although every party will make it known that they are against corruption, their actual motivation is to head departments for tenders to come their way. Hart deems it necessary to appoint an independent judiciary body to adjudicate and to address the problem of corruption allegations, “odious politicking,” and “might is right” agendas.

Listen to the full interview with Ml Sulaimaan Ravat and Chris Hart here.