Reference no: EM133699771

Assignment:

As the country settles from arguably one of the most consequential elections results our country has seen, questions have emerged about how coalitions so ideologically diverse can work together. The elections have revealed the resolve of voters to express their preferences of who should be responsible for decisions about issues on their doorstep. While the Constitution establishes municipalities for the whole of the territory of South Africa, it constitutes government as national, provincial, and local spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent, and interrelated. The convergence of these provisions in how the country is governed yields an intergovernmental relations intensive government and requires state organs to operate within the chapter three cooperative government principles. The municipal elections resulted in hung councils.

The sum impact of these hung councils when viewed from the perspective of hung municipal budgets, is that a substantial portion of municipal budget spending will be subject to continuous coalition government negotiations and vulnerabilities. The capability of the national and provincial state to impact on the local state will enter a phase where it will be mediated through policy filters that advance one political hegemony or persuasion or the other, save for where the provincial or national governing hegemony is of the same political party. The impact on policy intents, how these policies are spatially prioritised, whether the the success in the delivery of intents is recognised, and the extent to which government will use such progress as party political victories, will be both unprecedented and defining in how coalition government cooperation matures in South Africa.

The rise of genuine opposition politics in South Africa has firmly established a context where the Constitution's schedule 4 and 5 functional areas of concurrent or exclusive legislative or otherwise competence will henceforth be expected to coexist with voter power instead of being fundamentally utilised to advance a party's prerogative that are not voter sanctioned. As the new democratic order assumes its government 'of',' by', and 'for' the people, a context of competing for approval to govern by voters will force innovation in how a centralized national government will relate to the local sphere of government.

The way intergovernmental relations (IGR) were handled previously left local government to not only assume a life of its own but expose policy ambiguities and uncertainties that put the sensitive issues of fiscal reform and federalism back on the agenda. The 'family-members-only' IGR system and practice apparent in the uncharacteristic application of section 100 and 139 intervention mechanisms liquidated national government's capability to negotiate with other spheres as equal before the law organs of state envisaged in the chapter 3 cooperative government principles. The reach of the power of the Constitution, its rule of law basis, and the spirit of the cooperative government principles was for a while limited by the unfortunate 'family-members-only' approach to intergovernmental relations. The impact of this, though neutralisable, will be felt in the posture of 'provincial-governments-in-the-family' towards the new and 'voter-imposed' 'non-family-member-municipal-jurisdictions' relationships and relations that have entered the local sphere of government.

QUESTION 1

In the narrative it is argued that while the Constitution establishes municipalities for the whole of the territory of South Africa, it constitutes government as national, provincial, and local spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent, and interrelated. This imply that the three spheres of government should work as a unit, within a institutional framework. Deliberate the principles of such an institutional framework for intergovernmental relations in South Africa.

QUESTION 2

In the narrative it is argued that the capability of the national and provincial state to impact on the local state will enter a phase where it will be mediated through policy filters that advance one political hegemony or persuasion or the other, save for where the provincial or national governing hegemony is of the same political party. Critically explain and describe the developmental agenda of intergovernmental relations and cooperative governance for local government.