A proposed 1% vote threshold would discard hundreds of thousands of ballots and transfer seats to larger parties, yet do little to fix the coalition instability it was designed to solve, argues Michael Atkins.
As we gear up for the local government election in November, the stability of coalitions becomes an increasingly pertinent question.
After the 2021 LGE, 70 municipalities had hung councils (no party with an outright majority), compared to about 30 in previous elections. The results from the 2024 national and provincial elections point to this number rising to 90 or more, particularly with the MK Party having taken votes from the ANC in numerous places.
Since 2021, about 30 municipalities with coalitions have experienced leadership changes or some form of instability (not all coalition-related), with some making headlines repeatedly and dramatically. This has led to calls for various measures to “stabilise” coalitions to be legislated, with vote thresholds being a common proposal.
In August 2023, the National Dialogue on Coalitions was held in conjunction with the University of Western Cape’s Dullah Omar Institute. While agreeing that reforms will not cure the root causes of instability, the gathering concluded that some legislative changes were needed. This led to the first draft of the Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, known as the Coalitions Bill, which was published for comment in May 2024.
1% threshold
A key provision was that parties must obtain at least 1% of votes cast in a municipality in order to be awarded any seats on that council, regardless of the actual seat allocation calculations.
Given that very small parties have played a significant role in some of the notable examples of coalition instability, the premise of vote thresholds is that eliminating the smallest parties from representation would make the task of forming coalitions simpler and tend to keep coalitions in place for longer. Thresholds do not significantly reduce the number of coalitions needed.
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Although there has been ongoing discussion of vote thresholds and other legislative changes, including two private members’ bills tabled during 2025, the final Coalition Bill has not yet been approved by the Cabinet for tabling in Parliament.
While the intention had always been to implement this ahead of the coming election, this is now not possible, particularly considering the extensive public consultation that would be required.
Constitutional concerns
The biggest development during 2026 has been that the State Law Advisor gave an adverse opinion on the constitutionality of vote thresholds, and Cogta Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa has said that thresholds will not be included in this Coalition Bill.
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While the details of that legal opinion are not publicly known, there are clear constitutional concerns surrounding vote thresholds:
- Firstly, the right to vote in Section 19(3)(a) of the Constitution is limited if votes can be discarded in the process of allocating seats.
- The Section 19 rights to form political parties, to campaign, and to stand for office are all limited by imposing a retrospective barrier to holding office.
- The right to fair elections is also limited if votes for one party do not result in representation, while the same number of votes (or fewer) for another party will gain representation, simply on the basis of the total votes cast.
- Also important is the Section 18 right to freedom of association that was key to the New Nation Movement judgment in June 2020, where the Constitutional Court ruled that independent candidates have the right to contest national and provincial elections.
Of course, vote thresholds do not remove these rights entirely, and the key question is whether the limitation of rights is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society, as contemplated in Section 36 of the Constitution.
Also important will be the consideration of other measures aimed at reducing instability. A suitable means to reduce the scope for expedient or frivolous motions of no confidence is one example. Another would be tightening the requirements for parties to ensure greater internal democracy and adherence to procedural and administrative standards, reducing the scope for maverick political players to contest elections.
While the 2026 local government election will not see the imposition of vote thresholds, this will likely be pursued. One of the recommendations of the Report of the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel (ERCP) tabled in February 2026 was that national and provincial elections should include a 1% vote threshold.
A blunt instrument
Aside from the prospect of a formal ruling on the constitutionality of vote thresholds, the key argument against is that it is a blunt instrument, affecting the rights of voters in every electoral context, irrespective of whether coalitions are needed, or whether there might be a problem with stability.
In national elections, a 1% threshold typically discards the votes of 800 000 voters (about 5%), transferring about 18 seats to larger parties. In the 2021 local government election, 400 000 voters (about 4%) would have had their votes removed, transferring 173 seats from 66 parties primarily to the largest parties. 200 000 of those voters are in municipalities that do not need coalitions.
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Vote thresholds also create some troubling contradictions. Independent candidates would be allowed to retain seats in the National Assembly with fewer votes than parties who would be barred. Then, a 1% threshold has very different effects in metros and the National Assembly, compared to smaller municipalities and provincial legislatures.
The alternate proposal of a single-seat (or quota) threshold would reduce the effect in larger elections, but cause much higher percentages of votes in smaller elections to be discarded, as well as increasing the total number of votes removed and seats reallocated.
There is a logical problem with the view that eliminating small parties solves coalition problems. Larger parties can already bypass the smallest parties in coalition agreements and form coalitions with each other. Except for the current GNU, they have generally not chosen to do so. If thresholds are imposed, then the seats from the smallest parties would be distributed among those larger parties, and they would then be forced to make the exact deals that they have been avoiding up to now.
Coalition instability
The problems of coalition instability are indeed compelling, and if vote thresholds are enacted by Parliament, then we are almost certain to see the Constitutional Court conducting a searching examination of democratic rights balanced against deep concerns over the impact of political instability on the daily lives of all South Africans.
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In all of this, though, we must never lose sight of our core constitutional values of dignity and equality, or abandon our mission to heal the divisions of the past. I submit that we must retain what Valli Moosa in 2022 termed, “one man one vote of equal value”.
- Michael Atkins is an independent election analyst.
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