The dye is now cast. South Africa’s 2026 local government elections have come and gone. The votes have been counted and the final results declared.
The elections have delivered a clear and unmistakable message: no political party has secured an overwhelming mandate across most municipalities, and coalition governance is once again the defining feature of our democratic landscape. What now remains is the hard business of governing.
As coalition negotiations intensify across municipalities, two factors must guide the national conversation. First, every political party that contested these elections did so with the intention of entering government and exercising political power; all of them understanding that the state is an instrument of political control. Second, coalition negotiations must place the will of the people and the imperative of service delivery above narrow ideological preferences, factional interests and political grandstanding.
The first point may appear self-evident, yet it is frequently forgotten in the moral posturing that follows elections. Political parties are not charitable organisations. They are instruments through which groups of citizens seek to influence, obtain and exercise state power. Every candidate who stood for election, every activist who distributed pamphlets, and every party leader who addressed rallies did so because they wanted to govern.
The modern democratic state remains the single most powerful instrument for shaping society. Through the state, political organisations allocate resources, determine priorities and influence the daily lives of citizens. Municipal councils decide whether and how roads are maintained, whether and how refuse is collected, whether and how water reaches communities and whether and how local economies create opportunities. To pretend that parties contest elections for reasons other than access to political authority is to misunderstand the very nature of politics.
The real question, therefore, is not whether parties should participate in government. That was settled the moment they entered the contest. The question is how they should govern once voters have denied any single party an outright majority.
Coalition politics is not an accident. It is the direct expression of the voters’ wishes. Voters have effectively instructed parties to work together. The message from communities is that no organisation enjoys sufficient trust to govern alone. Citizens have demanded cooperation, compromise and maturity.
Unfortunately, South Africa’s recent coalition experience has often produced the opposite. Municipalities have become laboratories of instability. Coalition agreements are signed in the morning and collapsed even before the ink has dried up. Motions of no confidence have become tools of political blackmail. Residents watch in frustration as parties devote their energy to positions, titles and tactical manoeuvres while service delivery collapses.
This cycle cannot continue. Coalition negotiations should begin with a simple question: what arrangement will best serve the people who voted? Not which formula produces the greatest number of mayoral chains. Not which deal satisfies party headquarters. Not which arrangement delivers the most committee positions. The central consideration must be whether communities will receive better governance.
At the local government level, politics is ultimately about practical outcomes. Citizens want reliable energy supply, working streetlights, functioning clinics, clean streets, reliable water infrastructure, effective wastewater treatment systems, safer neighbourhoods and opportunities for local economic development. They are less interested in ideological purity than in competent administration. Communities do not experience governance through ideological manifestos. They experience governance through the quality of services they receive. As the late Chinese revolutionary and political theorist, Deng Xiaoping once argued: “It does not matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”
Bread-and-butter issues must therefore occupy the centre of coalition discussions. If two parties with different philosophical traditions can work together to assure certainty of energy supply, improve water provision, fix potholes and stimulate local investment, that partnership should be welcomed. If parties with supposedly compatible ideologies cannot provide stable government, their ideological similarities become irrelevant.
The history of democratic governance across the world demonstrates that successful coalitions are built not on absolute agreement but on shared objectives. Political parties are not required to abandon their identities. They are required to identify common ground and establish clear programmes of action. Municipal governance is not a university seminar on political theory. It is a practical exercise in solving problems.
This demands a new political culture. Coalition agreements should contain measurable service delivery targets. Partners should commit themselves to transparent accountability mechanisms. Municipal administrations should be protected from constant interference by the political elites and criminal networks. Professional competence should take precedence over patronage networks. Stable governance should become the benchmark against which coalition success is measured.
Most importantly, parties must remember that their legitimacy derives from the electorate. The seats around negotiating tables do not belong to political organisations in perpetuity but are temporarily entrusted to them by citizens. Every decision taken during coalition talks should therefore be filtered through a single democratic test: does this advance the interests of residents?
South Africa stands at an important political crossroads. The era of dominant-party certainty is steadily giving way to an era of negotiated governance. Whether this transition strengthens or weakens democracy will depend largely on the behaviour of political leaders during moments such as these.
The electorate has already spoken. It has distributed political power across multiple parties. It has rejected monopolies of authority. It has demanded cooperation. Political leaders therefore face a choice. They can approach coalition negotiations as a battlefield where political opponents must be defeated and humiliated. Or they can approach them as an opportunity to build municipalities that work.
The dye is indeed cast. The election contest is over. What matters now is not who won the loudest campaign, but who now demonstrates the greatest commitment to the people going forward. Coalitions that place citizens, service delivery and municipal stability at their centre will honour the democratic mandate. Coalitions driven by ego, ideological rigidity and narrow partisan calculations will betray it.
South Africans did not vote for endless negotiations. They voted for government. The responsibility now rests with political parties to prove that they understand the distinction.
Ramotshela is a doctoral candidate in management sciences and works at the University of South Africa (Unisa). He writes in his personal capacity.
