The MISTRA Coalitions Barometer 2021–2023 research project explores emerging trends in coalition politics in South Africa at a crucial time – when political parties are in a state of flux and new coalition practices and cultures are being consolidated, both in party politics and in governance. With many observers and scholars surmising that the emerging coalition practice in South Africa reflected turmoil, instability and compromised attention to quality developmental governance, it became imperative for MISTRA as a policy think tank to undertake a project aimed at systematically analysing coalition governance and related party-political practice.

The focus of the research at this stage is on the roughly two years of local government coalitions in metropolitan and local municipalities across the provinces, from the local government elections of 2021 to the second half of 2023. The core objectives of the research are two-fold: to identify the unfolding dynamics and South Africa’s emerging cultures of coalition politics and governance, and to use the knowledge to propose avenues for improvement, which could possibly also be of relevance in the provincial and national spheres. This high-level summary presents the trends derived from a qualitative database of case studies of 70 metropolitan and local coalition governments in South Africa.

Report by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection