South Africa’s legal framework allows a provincial government to dissolve a local government council if it fails to deliver on its mandate, but things get far more tricky when the same happens at the provincial level.done by Thandiwe Seboletswe and Cohen Grootboom from legal firm Adams & Adams, the national government is empowered by law to intervene where provincial coalitions fall apart, but it has no power to dissolve provincial governments and call for new elections.
While the GNU is not being sold to the nation as a coalition, its formation follows many of the same principles, including having a ‘founding document’ which all parties sign and subscribe to. In the case of the GNU, one of the key foundations in upholding the Constitution and the rule of law. If parties to a coalition agreement fail to honour their commitments, the repercussions are typically political rather than legal, the experts said.Local government coalitions since 2021 have varied in stability in South Africa, with the City of Tshwane providing a notable case study of legal consequences when ‘coalitions’ collapse.
In the Tshwane case, the provincial executive dissolved the council, citing a failure to meet executive obligations. The High Court’s order was modified to require the provincial executive to investigate the cause of the deadlock within the council and recommend appropriate actions.The judgment in the Tshwane case provides a useful stencil for guiding national intervention in provincial administration in terms of section 100 of the Constitution, which has similar wording to section 139.