BOKAMOSO
Coalition government is a real and better alternative to liberation movement politics
The national and provincial elections of 2019 boil down to a choice for voters between liberation movement governance and coalition governance. In the 2016 local government elections, people rejected the former in favour of the latter in the three large metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.
Almost two years later, their decision has been clearly vindicated. The parties of the coalitions governing those metros (DA, Cope, ACDP, FF+ and IFP) have shown conclusively that coalition government can start to move South Africa forward again.
This is no longer a matter for speculation. South Africans now have real, measurable evidence that parties with widely differing ideologies can come together and work together to bring the change South Africa needs. This is not to say it has been plain sailing. It hasn’t. We’ve had to find each other over and over again. We’ve had to climb the steep curve of learning to compromise and accept that no single party has a monopoly on good ideas. We couldn’t always move as quickly as we would have liked.
But the fact is, the centre has held. The common principles that brought us together have been a stronger glue than the differing ideologies that pull us apart. We all share the same vision of a safe, prosperous society. And so we are all committed to the same objectives: to fight corruption and crime; to create the conditions conducive to job creation; and to deliver services to all, focusing particularly on the poorest households.