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Former Advisor to Coalition Governments in Ireland, Fergus Finlay, says trust and relationships are an important ingredient towards the success of coalition governments.

“The key thing about coalitions is relationships, acceptance that you not going to get everything you want in a coalition, [and] acceptance that even if you don’t get everything you want, you are going to respect the bottom line,” Finlay said.

Finlay made the remarks during a webinar held under the topic: “Making Coalitions and Governments of National Unity Work: The Role of Professional Bureaucracies.”

The webinar was hosted by the National School of Government (NSG). 

It provided a platform to discuss the likely impact of the Government of National Unity (GNU) on the public administration and governance system, with lessons from countries abroad that have gone through power sharing arrangements, as well as in the country’s local government system where coalitions have also been in existence for a few years.

During Monday’s session, experts from the country and abroad shared their insights and experiences on the impact of coalition arrangements on public sector institutions.

Sharing his experience on coalition governments, Finlay said relationships, trust and a written programme is essential, noting that detailed structure to get to the programme is imminent.

“There is no guarantee in the end of success, unless there is trust and mutual respect,” Finlay said.
 

Former Chief of Cabinet for various Belgian Ministers, including the Vice Prime Minister from the Belgium government--which is known for coalition governments-- Jan Cornillie noted that the longest coalition negotiation in Belgium took 514 days.

Sharing lessons learned on coalition agreements, Cornillie underscored the importance of discussing coalitions before entering into government and the need to make compromises and institutionalise it because ‘pacification is in itself a key to coalition outcome.’

“Limit the zone of possible agreements by introducing facts and constraints into the discussions (what is implementable), provide an overarching narrative in which governing parties can find themselves; make use of the nation’s centre(s) of excellence in policymaking, and provide access to chief advisors from all governing parties,” Cornillie said.

Cornillie also emphasised that government is not completed by Ministers and Cabinet alone, but need a whole system, including advisors, the civil service, national expert bodies, and political advisors that trust each other.

Overcoming difficulties

Professor of Political Science at the University of Florence and Coordinator of Department of Public Policy and Governance, National School of Administration (SNA), in Italy, Professor Andrea Lippi, acknowledged that coalition governments are difficult.

Lippi said through coalition governments, Italy has seen transformation of the Cabinet with more relevant, not only legal supervision, but brokering and with more employees; and creeping professionalisation of civil servants towards a strategic role of policy making.

He said Italy also experienced the relevant role of informal relationships, networking, governance among ministries, and multilevel governance with 20 regions and 7 000 more municipalities, as well as new relationships between representative bodies and bureaucrats and related new problems, including accountability, delegation of responsibilities, and bargaining.

“We have observed the increasing relevance of soft power in place of (or beside) hard power; new stream of skills for a policy of training in favour of top civil servants; increasing the role of evidence-based policy making [including] policy evaluation, policy advice, open government and participatory procedures, and multi-level governance [amongst others].”

Professional public officers should be apolitical

Lesotho Institute of Public Administration and Management Administration Director-General, Nthabiseng Tlhomola, argued that the role of professional public officers is to serve the government of the day and as such, should be apolitical.

For the first time since 1966, the Lesotho general elections in 2012 produced a hung government, where no single political party could form government, and political parties were forced to engage in talks to join forces.
On the rise of GNU in Lesotho, Tlhomola said in general, the manifestos of the country’s political parties were  similar  - looking into infrastructure development, job creation and growing the economy.

“We are now more than 10 years [into] a coalition government; we therefore have a story to tell,” Tlhomola said.
Tlhomola noted that even though the oversight institutions are affected by government changes, the government makes sure that their role to ensure that government business operates as expected, continues. – SAnews.gov.za