Barely a week after South Africans went to the polls to elect new municipal councillors, a senior researcher in the City has published an academic paper evaluating the impact of coalition governments on service delivery. Vele Muhadi’s academic article delves into how coalition governments should be run as the country grapples with a new method of mainstream politics. The paper also examines Joburg’s coalition government arrangement since 2016, while evaluating its bearing on the effective delivery of municipal services.
He argues that political parties need to consider voters when negotiating coalition arrangements as this is critical to the viability and legitimacy of any union government. “My paper has been well received by the management of the City’s Research Unit and was on the agenda at a recent annual conference of the South African Association of Public Administration and Management (SAAPAM),” he says. Born and bred in Limpopo’s most northern village of Venda, Vele has already set sights on his next research topic: to examine how to provide economic opportunities to residents of Johannesburg disenfranchised by the Covid-19 pandemic.
