The Freedom Front Plus wants influence over the next municipal governments. The harder question is whether coalition agreements will bind their partners to better services, credible budgets and public accountability.
South Africa’s municipal negotiators have a record to confront before they divide the offices. In the latest national audit report, none of the eight metropolitan municipalities achieved a clean audit, according to the Auditor-General’s findings for 2024/25. Changing the mayor may be necessary in a particular city. It is an inadequate measure of whether that city is being repaired.
That is the substantive test behind Wouter Wessels’s argument for a more disciplined coalition politics. The Freedom Front Plus national spokesperson has advocated a common governing programme covering the economy, constitutionalism and tender management, as reported by Daily Maverick during the election count. Those priorities offer a basis for negotiation. Their value will depend on the obligations that survive after the offices have been allocated.
Influence is local
The 4 November election has produced a fragmented national picture. The official results announcement reported by SAnews put the ANC at 30.76% and the Democratic Alliance at 24.64%. These national aggregates describe the distribution of electoral support. They do not tell a negotiator which combination of councillors can sustain a government in a particular municipality.
A small party’s bargaining power depends on the local seats and the alternatives available to its prospective partners. A party can be necessary to one possible majority and dispensable to another. Calling itself a kingmaker establishes neither an exclusive right to choose the mayor nor an entitlement to a particular office.
The FF Plus’s 2026 municipal manifesto sets out a preference for cooperation that advances its programme, particularly removing the ANC from municipal power. It also promises negotiated arrangements centred on service delivery, financial discipline and accountability. These commitments belong together: replacing an incumbent is a political objective; governing competently is the public obligation that follows.
There is a democratic tension here. Smaller parties are entitled to represent their voters and negotiate policy. But influence exercised through a coalition must also serve residents who voted for somebody else. The Constitution’s local-government provisions require democratic accountability, sustainable services and attention to communities’ basic needs. A municipal government’s responsibilities extend beyond its partners’ electoral constituencies.
The audit record complicates every victory speech
Nationally, 39 municipalities achieved clean audits in 2024/25, roughly 15% of the municipal universe. That is a serious warning about the institutions the incoming councillors will oversee.
The findings also resist an indiscriminate account of collapse. The Auditor-General recorded improvements in financial reporting, including unqualified financial-statement opinions at 61% and timely submissions at 98%. An unqualified financial-statement opinion and a clean audit are different outcomes: credible accounts can coexist with material findings elsewhere.
Nor should an audit be turned into a comprehensive score for residents’ experience. The audit office distinguishes its financial, compliance and reporting work from a general assessment of municipal performance. The figures do not isolate the effect of coalitions, identify a single party as the cause of every failure, or prove that an alternative coalition would perform better. They establish a baseline against which claims of competence need testing.
Put the agreement where residents can see it
The FF Plus does not have a monopoly on the language of stability. The Inkatha Freedom Party’s 9 November coalition statement similarly commits it to clear agreements, shared priorities and mutual accountability. The useful distinction will be between arrangements residents can examine and promises whose meaning remains inside the negotiating room.
A credible agreement should name the immediate service failures it intends to address, publish the starting position and set achievable deadlines. For water repairs, refuse collection or infrastructure maintenance, residents need to know what improvement is promised, how it will be measured and who must answer when it does not happen. These are proposed tests of a governing agreement, rather than claims that any party has already accepted them.
The same agreement should explain how partners will settle disputes, support the budget and handle a material breach. It should protect lawful, competent administration through changes in political leadership. The Auditor-General has specifically urged incoming councils to preserve administrative stability where performance has been relatively good. A change of coalition should not itself become a reason to discard institutional knowledge.
Parties need not resolve every national ideological disagreement before cooperating locally. They do need sufficient agreement on decisions within the council’s authority, and a credible way of managing the rest. Declaring a difference irreconcilable does not answer what happens when it interrupts a budget or an essential appointment.
Wessels’s case for governing programmes deserves to be judged on that practical ground. The FF Plus and its prospective partners should be able to show what their bargaining secured for residents, how much it will cost and what happens if they fail. The election determines representation. The agreement should make responsibility visible. Residents will live with the consequences long after the negotiators have stopped calling themselves kingmakers.
