South Africa’s closely contested national elections has led to the formation of a government of national unity. With no party managing an outright majority, the ANC had no choice but to form coalitions with other parties – including the Democratic Alliance, which was previously the official opposition.
Although coalitions may be relatively new at a national level, local municipalities are all too familiar with the idea of power sharing. Almost one-third of South Africa’s municipalities had no party with an outright majority after the 2021 local government elections so were run by coalition agreements.
Of the 213 local municipalities and metros, 71 had coalitions. District municipalities are not included here. Most of Gauteng’s municipalities were coalitions (89%) after the elections, as were the Western Cape’s (64%).
One metric to measure how (un)successful these agreements have been is the number of mayors each has had in the two-and-a-half years since the local elections.
Data collected by The Outlier shows:
- 34 of the 71 coalition municipalities have stuck with one mayor
- 22 have had two mayors
- 15 have had three or more mayors, sometimes as many as five
Of the 15 municipalities that had three or more mayors, four are metros: Nelson Mandela Bay, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane. These four metros are home to 14-million people, about one-quarter of South Africa’s population. In some of these metros, coalition in-fighting has seen the installation of mayors from significantly smaller parties.
In the 15 municipalities, mayors have changed 37 times in total. Almost two-thirds of the removals were because of motions of no confidence. In Tshwane and Beaufort West, all mayors changed because of resignations between November 2021 and June 2024.
When mayors change often, it can lead to unexpected appointments.
Three of the 15 municipalities with a high mayoral turnover currently have a mayor whose political party holds 3% or less of the council seats. Two of these municipalities, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay, are major metropolitan areas and home to 5-million and 1.2-million people, respectively.
