Analysts question if 14 days enough time to achieve formation of national coalition govt
On Monday, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo announced the first sitting of Parliament will take place on Friday morning.
President Cyril Ramaphosa replied to oral questions from Members of the National Assembly at the Good Hope Chamber in Parliament, Cape Town on 19 March 2024. Picture: @GovernmentZA/X
JOHANNESBURG - As political parties scramble to form the country’s first-ever national coalition government, political analysts questioned whether 14 days was enough time to achieve the objective.
On Monday, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo announced that the first sitting of Parliament would take place on Friday morning.
This was in line with the legislation that states the National Assembly must sit no later than 14 days after the declaration of the election results.
Political analyst, Sanusha Naidu, said this placed a lot of pressure on all parties who were doing this for the first time.
"When we say is the 14 days reasonable, I think it’s a test of this right now. It is testing whether political parties can be mature enough and whether they find that kind of traction to work together."
Meanwhile, another analyst, Goodenough Mashego, said it was important that government was constituted as soon as possible.
"I think it is enough time. My thinking is when that provision was set out in the Constitution, the intention was for the handover of administration to say if a party lost, they are giving them that amount of time so that they are able to properly hand over the administration that’s coming into power, but we just happen to be in a situation where there won’t be a handover of power as the ANC [African National Congress] will not be wholly out of power."