In this section:

This chapter looks at political systems. It discusses the importance of strong political leadership for developmental local government and examines political and electoral systems for the new local government system.

1. Political Leadership
2. Political Systems
3. Municipal Elections
4. Concluding Comments

 

Both urban and rural localities are becoming increasingly complex units to govern. The local area is not an island unto itself, a closed society. Rather, local areas are increasingly part of a web of social, economic and political transactions that transcend their boundaries. The actions of a wide range of civil and corporate players impact on the local economy and society. Resources and capacity are dispersed across different sectors and deployed for a variety of purposes.

In this context of complexity, developmental municipalities will need to be guided by strong political leadership, able to make difficult policy judgements, work with a range of players and guide the actions of the administration to promote the social and economic well-being of local communities.

Developmental local government requires a political leadership which:

• Provides community-wide leadership and vision: Local communities are often diverse and contain a multiplicity of diverging interests. By putting forward a vision for the local area, building coalitions of common interest and encouraging the development of a vibrant civil society, local political leadership can enhance the capacity of diverse groups of people to act together around shared goals.
• Constantly builds its capacity to make policy judgements: Governing is about making choices, from the prioritisation of a range of demands to the allocation of limited resources. Local political leaders can actively strengthen their ability to make policy judgements through deepening their understanding of the dynamics in the local area, anticipating changes and learning from past practice.
• Is accountable and transparent: Accountability means being willing to account for one's decisions and actions. Developmental local government requires a political leadership which creates opportunities to account to the community over and above regular elections. Increased accountability ensures that the actions of the Council reflect the aspirations of the community, increases the legitimacy of the Council and deepens local democracy.
• Builds partnerships and coalitions: The challenge of meeting the needs and aspirations of local communities requires a political leadership able to build partnerships with communities, business, labour and other public agencies. A political leadership that engages in ongoing dialogue with a wide range of local actors will be able to identify and act on opportunities to build partnerships between sectors. In this way, human and financial resources and capacity can be mobilised to achieve developmental goals.
• Represents the diversity of interests: Municipal Councils which represent the diversity of interests within the local community are best able to provide credible and effective leadership. Municipalities should take active steps to ensure that representatives from groups which tend to be marginalised (such as women, people with disabilities and the poor) are encouraged to stand for elections. One way to achieve this is through running candidate support programmes, which provide information to prospective candidates on issues such as electoral systems and processes, and the functions and operations of local government; and build skills in areas such as public speaking, organising public meetings, fundraising and so forth.
• Demonstrates value for money: Local political leadership is responsible for ensuring that local taxes are utilised to the maximum benefit of the local community. Local political leadership should therefore be concerned with the efficiency and effectiveness of the local administration, and constantly seek to enhance performance and service quality.

Various support mechanisms are required to enable dynamic local political leadership, including capacity-building programmes for councillors, support for the policy formulation process and information systems.

Changes to the current local government system may also be required. For example:

• The ability of political leaders to ensure value for money and quality services requires a system of performance management which allows councillors to assess the performance of their own administration as well as that of other service providers (see also Section B: Developmental Local Government, 3.2).
• The development of partnerships requires a framework of support and regulation to enable various types of partnership.
• Building a community-wide vision requires strong support for ward councillors to engage local communities, and planning and budgeting processes which are participative and open.

These systems, although they are closely linked to the support and development of strong political leadership, are discussed elsewhere in this paper. The rest of this section is concerned with the systems and structures which directly shape the roles and operations of local political leaders, namely, political and electoral systems.

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2.1. The delegation of executive powers
2.2. Committee systems
2.3. Municipal types

2.1. The delegation of executive powers

2.1.1. Constitutional framework

The Constitution specifies that municipal Councils should make decisions concerning the exercise of all powers and the performance of all functions of the municipality. It obliges the Council to elect a chairperson, and allows the Council, subject to national legislation, to elect an Executive Committee.

National legislation may provide criteria for determining the size of a municipal Council, whether municipal Councils may elect an Executive Committee or any other committee, and the size of the Executive Committee or any other committee of a municipal Council.

Why delegate executive powers?

The first issue which requires attention is whether there should be a delegation of executive powers at the local level. In other words, should municipal Councils elect an executive?

The delegation of executive powers is common to most government systems. Generally, it has advantages in terms of both accountability and efficiency, particularly in larger Councils:

• Efficiency: A small executive has the ability to act more quickly, efficiently and responsively than a large legislature. However, the legislature acts as a check on the powers of the executive, and is able to ensure that the executive act in a manner consistent with its mandate.
• Accountability: An independent legislature can call both the executive and administration to account and is able to stimulate debate on policy issues and probe the implementation process.

These advantages may be minimised where the municipal Council is very small. It is common experience that discussions in large forums tend to be broader, and result in decisions more slowly, than those in small focused forums. A small Council with, for example, less than 12 members, may be able to take decisions as efficiently in plenary as through the establishment of a separate executive. Similarly, the number of members in Council may not be sufficient to stimulate wide debate in the legislature if a separate executive is formed.

While municipal Councils with more than twelve members should elect an executive, this does not undermine the role of non-executive members of Council. Both the executive and legislature have important, although distinct, roles to play in enhancing local democracy and accountability and steering the municipality towards developmental outcomes.

2.1.2. Individual and collective executives

There are a number of ways in which the executive can be structured. One of the key decisions is whether the executive should be a collective (a committee) or an individual.

An individual executive is most commonly the Mayor. This may be misleading in the South African context, where the Mayor has historically played a ceremonial as opposed to executive role. In this paper "Mayor" refers to an executive Mayor with a role different to the previous role of Mayors.

An individual executive Mayor may be an appropriate form of political leadership for many Councils. It has the advantage of "giving a face" to local government, and creating a strong focal point for local politics. However, the executive functions of large Councils may demand additional political capacity (technical capacity should be provided to any form of municipal executive). There are two broad options here:

• The first is to allow the Mayor to constitute a "cabinet" by appointing a limited number of members of Council to serve on her/his cabinet. The Mayor could delegate responsibilities to members of cabinet as required, but would remain accountable to Council for the executive functions of the municipality.
• The second is to create a collective executive, or "Executive Committee". This differs from the above option in that the Executive Committee is elected by the whole Council, and not appointed by the Mayor. Executive powers are vested in the Executive Committee through delegation from Council. Although the Mayor would be the chairperson of the Executive Committee, he or she would be unable to take executive decisions as an individual. In this system executive powers would be exercised collectively, i.e. a certain quorum of members of the Executive Committee would be required to take decisions.

The first option retains the advantages of an individual executive such as decisiveness and increased public visibility. However, the collective Executive Committee may also have distinct advantages: by spreading responsibility for executive functions across a number of councillors this structure can act as an effective method for building the capacity of emerging political leadership.

It is proposed that both individual and collective executive options are allowed for in future legislation. In other words, municipal Councils could have either:

• An executive Mayor, elected from and by the members of the municipal Council. The municipal Council would delegate executive powers to the Mayor. The Mayor could be allowed to appoint a limited number of Council members to his/her cabinet, depending on the size of the Council, or
• An Executive Committee, elected from and by the members of the municipal Council. The Mayor would be the chairperson of the Executive Committee. The municipal Council would delegate executive powers to the Executive Committee.

In both options the municipal Council would also elect a chairperson. The chairperson would preside over meetings of Council. The Council chairperson would play a separate and distinct role from that of the Mayor.

2.1.3. The extent of delegation

Each municipal Council must decide on which powers should be delegated to the executive Mayor or the Executive Committee.

Section 160(2) of the Constitution states that the following powers may not be delegated but must be exercised directly by the Council:

• The passing of by-laws.
• The approval of budgets.
• The imposition of rates and other taxes, levies and duties.
  The raising of loans.

In addition, national legislation may prohibit the delegation of other functions, such as the approval of municipal integrated development plans.

Municipal Councils should delegate executive powers in a manner which facilitates timeous and efficient decision-making, and allows for the sound management and oversight of the municipal administration.

The delegation of powers and functions to other Council committees may also enhance decision-making processes within the Council.

2.2. Committee systems

Municipal committees can have either delegated powers (to take decisions within their terms of reference) or advisory powers (to advise the executive on issues which fall within their terms of reference) or a combination of both.

Council committees can play a number of roles:

• Management and supervision of a municipal function: Committees, established to oversee the workings of the administration, tend to operate best when they have distinct areas of competence and are aligned to the administrative departments/clusters/units which they supervise. However, there is a danger that only having committees structured along departmental lines will lead to fragmented decision-making.
• Management and supervision within part of a municipal area: Municipal Councils with large areas of jurisdiction may wish to delegate managerial or supervisory powers to area-based committees whose areas of jurisdiction correspond to decentralised administrative units. Area-based committees can assist with the coordination of municipal service delivery within a particular area, and should have delegated or advisory powers over (aspects of) a number of functions within their area of jurisdiction.
• Policy-formulation: Committees established to formulate policy (or manage a participative policy formulation process) may operate best where the focus of the committee crosses departmental boundaries (for example, poverty alleviation or inner city regeneration as opposed simply to housing or parks and recreation).

All municipalities will be required to establish an Audit Committee and a Tender Committee to enhance municipal accountability, with the exception of very small municipalities, which will be required to establish an audit and tender function.

The kind of committee system that will best enable a municipality to fulfil its functions depends on local requirements, needs and policy priorities.

Within any committee system it is critical that councillors are provided with sound information as a basis for decision-making. The committee system has traditionally been driven by reports generated by the administration. While this is usually sufficient for supervisory functions, committees with a policy focus require a broad base of information sources. In such cases, other options should be considered, including:

• The establishment of policy research units.
• Contracting in policy research capacity.
• Joint research initiatives between municipalities.
• The establishment of a relevant database.

2.3. Municipal types

Section 155 of the Constitution obliges national government to define the different types of municipality that may be established within each category of municipality, and provincial governments to determine the different types of municipality to be established in the province.

In referring to types, the Constitution clearly envisages some differentiation between municipalities in addition to the different categories of municipalities provided for (A, B or C). In other words, municipalities belonging to the same category might differ from each other in terms of their political systems. Municipal political systems provide a basis for such differentiation, and for the development of municipal types.

Municipal types could include variables such as:

• Whether a municipal Council has an Executive Committee, an individual Executive (such as an executive Mayor), or no delegation of executive powers.
• The number of members of the Executive Committee, or the number of members that an Executive Mayor may appoint to constitute his or her cabinet.
• The number of committees that a municipal Council may establish.

National legislation will define a number of municipal types, and specify guidelines for the application of types. For example, to ensure that decision-making is streamlined and efficient, a maximum number of committees and committee members may be determined in relation to the category of municipality and size of the municipal Council. This maximum number will not include ad hoc committees (such as issue-specific committees established for a limited time period) or other committees which municipalities may be required to establish by legislation.

Provincial legislation will determine which municipal types will be applied in each province. In addition, Ward Committees and Metropolitan Substructures may be committees of a Metropolitan Council and hence the choice between systems of metropolitan government is a choice of municipal type, which must be determined by provincial legislation.

• Each municipality will determine which committees it will establish, the membership of its committees, and the powers to be delegated to each committee.

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3.1. Electoral systems

The present municipal electoral system consists of:

• 40% proportional representation.
• 60% first-past-the-post ward candidature.

This system has two excellent features, namely, an element of representivity (the proportional matching of Council seats with votes cast), and an element of accountability (the identification of individual councillors to particular wards). Both these valuable features should be retained in any future system.

The issue of representivity does not only refer to party proportionality, but extends to wider questions of representivity, such as the gender balance within municipal Councils. Although women constitute more than 50% of the population, only 20% of municipal councillors are women. International research has shown that a proportional representation system is most likely to result in an increased proportion of women councillors. This is substantiated by the results of the 1995 local government elections in South Africa, where 29% of the councillors elected to proportional representation seats were women, compared to 11% of women elected to wards.

While a proportional representation system is most favourable in terms of gender representivity, the increased accountability offered by a ward component should not be lost. The enhanced accountability which will result from strengthening the role of ward councillors will benefit all groups within the community, including women. A new electoral system should therefore retain both a proportional representation and ward component. The present ratio of 40% proportional representation to 60% ward seats will be retained.

The present system is a parallel system* in which both components operate separately. The effect of this is that distortions on party representivity produced by the high first-past-the-post ward component are not necessarily adjusted by the proportional component. This could be substantially corrected in the South African situation, while still retaining the advantages of wards, by applying a mixed system* in which the proportional component is deliberately geared to adjust distortions.

In the proposed mixed system, ward candidates would be elected in single-member wards according to the system of first-past-the-post. In addition, party votes would be counted either on the basis of the political affiliation of the ward candidates, or on a second party vote. The total party votes would determine the overall number of seats in the municipal Council to which each party is entitled, calculated proportionally according to the present droop quota and the largest remainder method. Thus, if a municipal council has 20 seats and a party wins 70% of the party votes in the election, it will qualify for 70%, or 14 seats. If it has won six ward seats, it will therefore receive an additional eight proportional representation seats, allocated as at present from its closed party list. The number of proportional representation seats is determined by subtracting the ward seats from the total allocation given by the proportional representation count. No seats would be deducted where a party wins more ward seats than those allocated to it by virtue of its party votes.

The existing gender inequities in municipal government could be addressed through the introduction of a quota system in the proportional representation component by political parties. This would be an interim mechanism required by current circumstances. Prolonged use of a quota system may have an adverse effect, and defeat the objective of empowering women to stand as candidates for municipal Councils and compete against male candidates on an equal footing. Political parties are encouraged to ensure that at least half of the candidates on party lists in the next three municipal elections are women, and that party lists are drawn up so that the first candidate on the list, and every second candidate thereafter, is a woman.

A mixed electoral system may be unnecessarily complex for small urban municipalities with around 1500 or fewer voters. In these cases only the proportional representation component should be applied.

3.1.1. Ward delimitation

Ward delimitation is the responsibility of the Electoral Commission.

The delimitation of wards should take into account the following criteria:

• An approximately equal number of registered voters between wards, with not more than 10% variation from the norm.
• Availability and location of a suitable place for voting (and counting if appropriate), taking into consideration:
  • Communications and access to and from that place.
    Density of population.
  • Topography and physical characteristics.
  • Safety and security of voters and the integrity of the voting process.
• Suburban identity.
• Number of voters who can be accommodated within the required time frame.

3.1.2. Number of councillors

At present there are some 11 300 municipal councillors in the country. Many municipalities have more councillors than is necessary or affordable. Municipal Councils which are too large obstruct meaningful representation and effective decision-making, as Council meetings become extended and indecisive, committees grow in size and number, and administration fragments. Currently, many councillors are part-time appointments, and must juggle their time to accommodate work, family and civic commitments. Ward councillors in particular struggle to manage their work commitments and to remain responsive to community needs.

A more community-oriented political system could be built through reducing the overall number of councillors, and using the financial resources allocated to councillors to enable the appointment of an increased proportion of councillors on a full-time basis.

It is proposed that the number of councillors is determined by setting an upper limit (which should be the maximum size of a municipal Council which facilitates effective decision-making) and a lower limit, and determining a range between these two limits. In general, an appropriate upper limit or maximum size for municipal Councils is approximately 45 members of Council, and an appropriate lower limit is three members of Council. In large metropolitan areas additional Council seats may be required to ensure adequate representation. While this approach will result in different councillor : constituent ratios in different parts of the country, it will ensure that every municipal Council is scaled to enable effective decision-making within its area of jurisdiction.

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Democratic and developmental local government requires dynamic political leadership, regular and free elections, and appropriate political structures and systems.

To enable a community-oriented and dynamic political leadership, it is proposed that the number of municipal councillors be reduced, and the support provided to councillors increased.

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Contents | General | Section A | Section B | Section C | Section D | Section E | Section F | Section G | Section H | Annexure A | Annexure B | Annexure C | Annexure D | Glossary | Obituary | The White paper process

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