The South African Human Rights Commission has called on political parties to prioritise service delivery and human rights promises they made to voters when negotiating the models of coalitions. Wisani Baloyi for the commission says that as the commission it wishes to remind political parties to draw lessons from the negative experiences of local government coalitions when negotiating national and provincial coalition agreements. Baloyi says the local government coalitions have been characterised by votes of no confidence, leading to changes in Speakers and Mayors, instead of focusing on improving the service delivery needs of the people thereby addressing fundamental human rights. He says political parties made promises in their manifestos and during campaigns to address challenges urgently, in order to ensure the realization of people's rights and the addressing of violations. Moreover, Baloyi says human rights challenges such as unemployment, lack of service delivery, high crime rate and gender-based violence dominated the concerns of voters and promises made by political parties in their manifestos and during campaigns. These challenges must be addressed with extreme urgency to ensure that the rights of the people are realised and violations redressed. The Commission reiterates that any coalition or grand coalition must be built on human rights principles to fast-track the realisation of socio-economic rights in the country.  

Journalist: Rene Julies
Email: rckjulies@gmail.com