Insulating municipal administration from instability

Effective, stable administration is crucial for local government to perform its constitutional mandate, but there is no “protection” for the continuity in administration where the political leadership of the municipality constantly changes. Unlike in other provinces, many municipalities in the Western Cape are not governed by a single political party but by coalitions. In many instances, political alliances are forged between parties with different ideological and political beliefs. The biggest challenge to these “political partners” is to keep the coalition together once it is in power. The instability inherent in these coalition arrangements has led to wider instability in the Western Cape municipalities and has become a real problem. This study examines the problem of unstable administration due to changing coalition governments and proposes possible ways to insulate administrations from the adverse effects of coalitions.