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Local government elections: Don’t expect any real change with new local government

01 July 2021 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath and André Damons

Webinar on Gov Election June 2021 Web Read-more_web — Discussing local government elections. Panellists in the University of the Free State Thought-Leader webinar hosted on 29 June 2021.

Elections are supposed to bring better, more accountable governments into place, but at local government level this has not happened so far. No real change should be expected with new local governments. The elections are not necessarily the answer.

This is according to Prof Susan Booysen, Director of Research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), who was one of the panellists at the University of the Free State (UFS) Thought-Leader webinar on Tuesday (29 June 2021). The webinar with the theme South African politics and the local government elections: scene setter for a capable state? is part of the Free State Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal.

Mr Ebrahim Fakir, Director of Programmes at the Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute (ASRI), and Prof Sethulego Matebesi, Associate Professor and Academic Head of the Department of Sociology at the UFS, were the other two panellists who discussed politics and local government elections – which is only four months away.

Not much progress in local government

“We've seen minor changes, more coalition governments that have been coming into power – at least in the metro cities. In the last few elections, there have been in the region of 30 or so local and major municipalities with coalition governments in South Africa,” said Prof Booysen.

According to her, she does not believe that we can go without elections; however, elections are not necessarily the answer, as there has not been much progress at local government elections as well as on other levels.

Prof Matebesi is in agreement with Prof Booysen, saying that the forthcoming elections would not bring about any change. Said Prof Matebesi: “If we agree that problems in local government – which leads to poor performance – are caused by political and not administrative leaders, if we agree that the local government system is not geared for power-sharing, and if we agree that the challenges of political leaders can partly be ascribed to the dominance of internal party politics, particularly the immense power vested in the office of the mayor – where there is sometimes a complete disregard for council resolutions – then I believe that the 2021 local government elections will not affect the changes, and produce a strong local government, capable of fulfilling its constitutional mandate.”

Decent government can withstand bad politics

Mr Fakir said it is not possible to talk about a capable state or governance or effective government if we do not talk about politics. Axiomatically, it would mean that if politics precedes government, the type of politics prevalent in society would determine the nature of government thereafter.

“Even if there is bad politics – with robust institutions, processes, and procedures according to which decisions are made and resources are allocated, society will be able to withstand a period of bad politics. The US and the UK have had bad politics for some time, with robust institutions. However, in South Africa, only 20 years into transition, our institutions are not robust enough and have therefore been available for the malevolent acts of state capture due to corruption,” says Fakir.

He outlined five markers for a capable state:

1. A strong regulatory capacity – the ability to make laws and policies that are prudent, appropriate, and that fit the circumstances of the society.

2. A technical capacity – the engineering works, the ability to technically maintain and build the infrastructure and carry out the necessary activities required to make a society functional and facilitate its social and economic activity.

3. An administrative capacity – the ability to execute and implement strong oversight, serious ways of extracting accountability.

4. An extractive capacity – the ability to raise taxes, revenues, rates, so that there is funding for the kind of things that need to happen at local government level.

5. A coercive capacity – the ability to ensure compliance with rules.

“I would argue that if one had to take each of these five measures, you would find that local government – and government in general – are lacking. So, if you have bad and malevolent politics, if you have bad ethics in society, then the ability for these five functional areas of capability in state suddenly starts to wither away, and you have a weak state,” Fakir said.

South Africa is going through transformation and transition fatigue in the local government area. “At each local level of the state, there is a cadreship of representatives who are more powerful and can exercise power over the PR system. This type of dysfunction filters through the system of accountability and oversight, and as such, people who are responsible for coalface delivery collapse because the oversight is not there.”

According to him, we have bad politics, and because of this our institutions are easily manipulated, our processes are easily undermined, and people are put in those positions because they can be easily manipulated.

“Because of that, you have poor accountability, laxity, a poor attitude of working with a sense of ‘all will do as they please’ – the one takes licence from the other, and people feed off each other’s desire for lack of compliance, giving rise to a predatory state.”

Prof Francis Petersen, who was the facilitator, said the challenges relating to local government will persist.

“Ultimately, it is about the culture of service, the trust that needs to be developed between the citizens and local government. It is not only about the technical competency, but also about the ethical and value systems,” said Prof Petersen.

According to him, the role of universities in this should never be underestimated. Platforms should be open to debate and discussion to offer potential solutions to politicians and to bring across that ethical and critical analysis.

News Archive

African Student Affairs Conference a huge success

2011-05-24

Mr Rudi Buys, UFS Dean of Student Affairs, Mr. Folabi Obembe, Managing Director of Worldview International, Ms Birgit Schreiber, Director of the Centre for Student support services at the University of the Western Cape, Dr. Augustinah Duyilemi, Dean of Student Affairs at the Adekunleh Ajasin University in Nigeria, Dr. Christina Lunceford, assistant Director for the Centre for Research on Educational Access and Leadership at California State University in America, and Prof. Cecil Bodibe, student affairs veteran and consultant.
Photo: Earl Coetzee

The African Student Affairs Conference (ASAC), which took place on our Main Campus last week, was a major success, with two days of lectures and discussions and two pleasant social gatherings, where delegates had the opportunity to get to know each other.

The conference, hosted on African soil for the first time, and co-hosted by the University of the Western Cape (UWC), started on Wednesday 18 May 2011 with an informal welcoming session. Delegates got to meet each other and Mr Rudi Buys, UFS Dean of Student Affairs, explained the meaning of South African words like "kuier" and "lekker'.

The official start of events took place on Thursday 19 May 2011, in the Reitz Hall in our Centenary Complex. The conference was attended by delegates from universities across the continent and aimed to place the focus on issues relating to student affairs in an African context.

Delegates shared and exchanged strategies, ideas and resources, and discussed issues related to the work of student affairs professionals. The conference hoped to promote an exchange of best practice and assist attendees in identifying successful programmes.

Among the topics discussed on the first day, were “Constructing Post-Conflict Democracy on campus: a case study of transformation of student governance and political engagement as post-conflict intervention”, by Mr. Buys, and a discussion on ways in which social and online media can be used to ease the challenges of student interaction, development and support, by Ms Birgit Schreiber, Director of the Centre for Student Support Services at UWC.

A panel discussion, led by Mr Buys and several members of our Interim Student Council (ISC), discussed the specific challenges faced at the UFS. The importance of buy-in from role-players in decisions taken by University management in order to ensure their success, was discussed, using the UFS and our recent changes as an example.

The successful integration of residences on campus inevitably came under the spotlight and the recently resolved Reitz-saga was named as a catalyst in getting students less apathetic and more involved in attempts at creating racial and social harmony.

Dr Christina Lunceford, Assistant-Director of the Centre for Research on Educational Access and Leadership at California State University, presented a paper entitled A National Approach to Building Capacity in Student Affairs in South African Higher Education.

She commented on the fact that there is little or no philosophical framework or explicit theory that informs practice of student services in South Africa.

According to Dr Lunceford, student development should be a key concern for every department or unit within student services and emphasized the need for a centralized student development unit at each university.
She also touched on the need for institutions to implement support from international student affairs professional associations, professional development for student affairs practitioners, the utilization of technology to support professionals in the field, and working with international partners to explore future opportunities, as ways in which student affairs can be used to drive performance and change at universities.

The conference continued in the Scaena theatre on Friday 20 May 2011, with presentations by Dr Augustinah Duyileme, Dean of Student Affairs at Adekunle Ajasin University in Nigeria, and Prof. Bobby Mandew, Executive Director of Student Affairs at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

Dr Duyileme presented a paper on the challenges faced by Nigerian universities with regard to student conflict and protests, which often turn violent, and how such violence can be curbed through proper planning and management.

Prof. Mandew presented a very well-received presentation on UJ’s successful off-campus housing initiative, which involves home-owners and business owners in the areas surrounding their campuses.

Their approach demonstrated how proper planning can prevent problems associated with over-population in private homes and conflict with neighbours of the university, usually related to an influx of students into residential neighbourhoods.

This problem is faced by many universities, as more and more students flock to universities on the continent and campus residents cannot accommodate them.

The conference came to a close on Friday, with most delegates agreeing that the exchange of knowledge which took place was extremely valuable.

Ms Deborah Lahlan, of Nigeria, said: “This is an important conference for Africa and it should become a regular event.”

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