You have to get to the root of a snag in order to make a breakthrough, because it’s possible that what you thought you knew is actually wrong. Unlearning is perhaps the hardest thing to do, but it must be done. Any knowledge, unless updated, becomes worthless.
Viswanathan Anand (five-time World Chess Champion)
The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs has given municipalities a framework for the most demanding fortnight in local politics. It is a serious document, and in places a very good one. It is also incomplete in ways that matter, and the next two weeks will test it. This article sets out my initial thoughts on the guidelines some 24 hours after their publication, and I will in all probability add to these comments as the picture develops. It should also be read in conjunction with my other recent articles on coalition politics, the links to which are provided in the reference section below. The guidelines themselves can be accessed at https://t.co/jBLgqmEuMU
The new normal
CoGTA says that 138 metropolitan and local municipalities, about 65% of councils, did not produce an outright majority on 4 November. Local government scholar Jaap de Visser has pointed out that the equivalent figure in 2001 was 66. The statutory period for constituting councils began on 12 November and runs to 26 November. Into that window the Minister released the Guidelines for Stable Coalitions in Local Government, approved by MINMEC on 11 November. (Reports differ on the number of hung councils; see the notes in the reference section). The Guidelines are openly, clearly, interim.
The Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill (B23–2026), the so-called “Coalitions Bill”, was submitted to Parliament on 7 August and has not been enacted. The document says plainly that its references to the Bill are “for information and planning” and that its proposals apply only if the Bill is enacted and brought into operation. This article reads the Guidelines against four tests that negotiation and dispute systems (see my work on Dispute Systems Design) research and best practice suggests any coalition framework must pass:
- Legitimacy: does it work inside the constitutional and statutory order?
- Commitment: does it help parties make promises that their partners can believe?
- Process: does it offer a fair and credible route when talks stall? - Usability: can a negotiator in a hung council use it this week?
My assessment is that the Guidelines are strong on the first, thin on the second, uneven on the third, and constrained on the fourth by timing rather than by drafting. I offer this critique in the hope that the momentum and good intentions of the Guidelines can be translated into real, urgent and lasting benefits to all. It is, accordingly, a conflict analysis, not party political material.
Every resident of a hung municipality has a stake in these documents working, and the Department has itself undertaken to review the Guidelines against any enacted amendments. I should maybe add a brief note on the scope of my discussion here as well – even my initial analysis runs into a few thousand words, so I have purposefully left out a few issues that I believe are of lesser immediate value, we can always return to that later.
Boundaries of the Guidelines
The status paragraph in section 1.1 is unusually, refreshingly candid. The Guidelines are non-binding. The Constitution, legislation and lawful municipal instruments govern municipal decisions. The document promises to distinguish three things: current legal requirements, proposed reforms, and recommended practice. In the legal chapter it keeps that promise through boxes marked as proposed reforms “for information and planning only”. The structure is sensible. After a short account of how coalitions can form (section 2) and some principles and definitions (section 3), the document sets out the legal mechanics: the election of speakers and mayors, executive systems, motions of no-confidence, deadlines and time limits (section 4).
It then turns to administrative continuity: rules of order, terms of reference, delegations, senior appointments and the leadership role of the municipal manager (section 5). It closes with summary steps and a template agreement (sections 6 and 7). The central diagnosis in section 1.2 is that instability becomes damaging when it is prolonged or repeated, when councils cannot meet or elect office-bearers, or when budgets and the Integrated Development Plan cannot command a majority. The document is careful to add that a change in governing majority “is not inherently problematic or anti-democratic”.
I have been developing that point for months before the elections – if coalition governments are inevitable, then that political reality can, and should, be turned into proverbial rocket fuel to get us to where we need to be. The Auditor-General’s municipal audit reports (MFMA general reports) lend weight to the concern. They have repeatedly recorded leadership instability, political and administrative, among the municipalities with the weakest audit outcomes. Those reports describe association, not proven causation, and the Guidelines would be stronger for saying so.
One note of caution against using the Guidelines, in present or future form, as a replacement for effective conflict management – this set of guidelines, as we will discuss, already improves the arena, and further versions will probably improve that. A template or set of guidelines will always just be an aid, especially in something as complex as coalition politics. It will never be an adequate replacement for a holistic assessment and skilled conflict leadership, and at least a small team, in at least one involved political party, will need to have modern, above-average levels of understanding and application of conflict concepts such as engineered conflict escalation and de-escalation, timing and sequence, conflict ripeness, identity conflict, face saving and a few other indispensable conflict tools. This skill is necessary as the operating system on which the operational and more political issues and considerations, and even the terms of the Guidelines themselves, run.
Guidelines: the strengths
Legal transparency as a conflict prevention tool
In disputes, uncertainty about what is binding quickly becomes a second dispute. By stating its status at the outset and labelling each proposed reform as such, the Department denies negotiators the chance to wave a half-remembered Bill clause as if it were law. That discipline also shows in how the document handles motions of no-confidence. Press summaries have compressed the guidance into an instruction to curb abuse of such motions. The text is more careful. Section 5.3.3 invites councils to ask whether their rules of order can reduce abuse, but immediately requires legal advice on whether any procedural or substantive condition is compatible with the statutory removal power. Section 5.3.5 repeats the warning about restrictions on repeat motions. Section 5.3.2 states the real dilemma with impressive clarity: frequent motions destabilise, while a properly adopted motion expresses the democratic will of the majority. Councils cannot lawfully legislate away a statutory power by internal rule, and the Guidelines do not pretend that they can.
Separating political agreement from municipal decision
The strongest conceptual contribution is the repeated insistence that a coalition agreement is a political instrument, not a municipal one. The non-negotiable principles in section 3.1 say that agreements record political support without substituting for statutory election or appointment processes. Section 4.15.3 explains that a change of coalition leaves the approved IDP, budget, lawful contracts and council resolutions in force until they are lawfully amended. Section 6.2 adds that a decision of the Coalition Caucus or Leadership Committee is not a decision of the council or any statutory functionary. This matters for conflict management because most coalition crises are really boundary crises: who may decide what, and who may undo it. A clear boundary lowers the stakes of each political fight. If a coalition falls, the water, the refuse collection and the lawful contracts continue.
Administrative resilience by design
Sections 5.4 to 5.7 offer practical advice that is often underrated. Councils are asked to define roles in their terms of reference, including how councillors interact with officials, and to use the system of delegations to deal with vacancies in the offices of speaker, mayor and municipal manager. The warning against “islands of authority” in the executive recognises that delegations to individual members of a multi-party executive can become fiefdoms. The statement that later ratification cannot validate a power that could not lawfully have been exercised in the first place is exactly right, and closes a tempting shortcut. Section 5.7 deserves particular praise. It tells councils to leave the municipal manager room to assemble a senior team, and it states that explicit or implicit agreements about how many senior managers each coalition partner “gets to appoint” are illegal and, in any event, a recipe for problems. Politicised appointments are one of the most consistently reported drivers of municipal dysfunction, and it is valuable to have the principle stated this candidly by the Department.
The important role of the municipal manager
Section 5.8 treats the municipal manager as a stabilising professional: calming, politically neutral, keeping the senior team united, and informed early of political developments. As it should be. The observation that rules are “a sanctuary” for officials is sound. Procedural predictability protects people from being accused of taking sides. It reflects what the research literature on procedural justice finds generally: people tolerate unwelcome outcomes better when they trust the process (Thibaut and Walker; Tyler).
The real working parts of the template
The template agreement in section 7 contains several features that comparative research on coalition agreements would endorse. Strøm and Müller’s work on agreements in parliamentary democracies shows that their value lies as much in rules of the game, meaning how the partners will make decisions and manage disagreement, as in policy content. The template has co-chairs of the Joint Caucus drawn from different parties (6.7), notice and no-ambush rules (6.9 to 6.12), a caucus break when there is no agreed position (6.13), free votes on matters of conscience (6.5), a request that parties refrain from public commentary during a dispute (7.5), an annual review (8.2), publication through the municipal manager (10), and an instruction that termination must not suspend statutory duties (7.10).
These are sensible tools, well-tested in other arenas. A party that adopts the template wholesale will be better prepared than one that improvises.
Where the Guidelines fall short
1. The Guidelines’ own principles carry more force than their status
Section 3.1 declares its principles “not negotiable”, while section 1.1 says the entire document is non-binding. The principles themselves are sound, but a lawyer will read the tension as an invitation to argue. The Guidelines should say clearly who the “not negotiable” binds: municipalities that adopt them, parties that sign agreements incorporating them, or only the Department in applying its own support. I understand that these are “guidelines”, but we are also in a crucial phase where clarity and a measure of cohesion could be more valuable than suggestions.
2. Dispute resolution is designed by the disputants, for the disputants
Section 4.15.2 recommends early notification, internal escalation, reasonable timelines and mediation or independent facilitation “where appropriate”. That is an excellent checklist. The template delivers only part of it. Clause 7 creates a ladder: the Joint Caucus refers an unresolved dispute to the Leadership Committee, which may then “initiate negotiations through an intermediary” or “appoint a mediator” (7.4). Four problems, from case studies and practice here and elsewhere, follow.
First, the neutral element is optional and unspecified:
Clause 7.4 says “may”. There is no method for choosing a mediator, no panel, no funding, no confidentiality and, above all, no timeline. Clause 7 contains no deadline of any kind, although section 4.15.2 itself recommends reasonable timelines. In a municipal setting, where statutory clocks keep running, an undated process is a process that can be used to delay. William Zartman’s work on ripeness reminds us that parties move toward settlement when they perceive a costly stalemate and a way out. For all the wrong reasons we have not reached that stage, and it will have to be engineered. Deadlines and a credible alternative path are what create that perception.
Second, the Leadership Committee is the dispute:
Under clause 6.15 it comprises the mayor, the deputy, the caucus chair and deputy chair, the whip and the leaders of every party in the coalition. Those are the principals in most disputes. When the Leadership Committee itself is divided, clauses 7.7 to 7.9 send the matter to the Caucus, whose advice returns to the Leadership Committee, whose resolution is then returned to the Caucus for final approval. The loop has no tie-break and no end. It also inverts the hierarchy, since caucus members are in practice subordinate to the party leaders whose dispute they are asked to settle.
Third, escalation to national or provincial party leaders imports a bigger game into a local one:
Section 4.15.2 suggests a dispute resolution committee of senior national or provincial party leaders. The language echoes the 2021 framework published by the Dullah Omar Institute at the University of the Western Cape, which was itself a thoughtful proposal. But a local budget dispute handled by principals who have national interests becomes a bargaining chip in wider coalition politics. A 2022 opinion piece in the Daily Maverick made the related criticism that dispute structures staffed by interested partisans are neither neutral nor objective. In Robert Putnam’s terms, the local table is now nested in several other tables.
Fourth, the system skips a rung:
The leading framework for designing dispute systems, from William Ury, Jeanne Brett and Stephen Goldberg’s Getting Disputes Resolved, as well as the more modern and measurable Dispute Systems Design frameworks, propose that organisations resolve conflicts through low-cost interest-based processes first (talking, then mediation), with rights-based processes (a neutral determination of what was agreed) and power-based processes (exit, vote) as fallbacks, and with loop-backs so that a failed fallback returns parties to negotiation. The template has interests (negotiation, mediation) and power (termination, clause 9), but no rights-based step.
To that should be added people in the trenches with an advanced understanding of identity conflict. There is no mechanism for an expert or panel to answer a narrow factual or interpretive question, such as whether a proposed budget breaches the agreed priorities, or whether a party has breached the agreement. Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for durable collective arrangements similarly call for cheap, accessible conflict-resolution mechanisms and graduated sanctions. The template moves from conversation to dissolution with nothing in between. These tools all exist, they are just not used, for a variety of reasons.
Two more points can be mentioned here. Procedural justice research (Thibaut and Walker; Tyler) and the “reactive devaluation” studies associated with Lee Ross show that proposals are discounted when they come from the other side. This ties in with identity conflict mechanisms and face saving realities, none of which are understood or applied by our senior politicians. Neutral origination of proposals matters as much as their content. And clause 7.6 refers to a “Joint Committee” that is defined nowhere in the template, while clause 6.3 refers to a mechanism that also cannot solve the challenge. In dispute text, ambiguity is fuel for secondary conflict and trust issues.
3. The commitment problem is acknowledged but not solved Barbara Walter’s work on why negotiated settlements hold or fail identifies credible commitment as the central difficulty: parties settle only if they believe the other side can and will keep its promises. Coalition agreements face this problem acutely. Template clause 3.1 says the agreement gives no legal rights to any party or third party and is “a solemn undertaking”. That is legally honest, and may be inevitable, since no agreement may fetter statutory powers. The reported text of the Bill goes further, proposing compulsory and legally binding agreements that are published and provided to the MEC. The Guidelines’ status box refers to the Bill but, in the text I reviewed, does not discuss that proposal or what the template should look like if it is enacted. The secret ballot sharpens the difficulty, in practice if not on the text of the guidelines.
Under section 4.6 of the Guidelines, elections with more than one nominee are conducted by secret ballot. For removals, the method depends on the statute and the rules, and the Bill would let councils choose between a show of hands and a secret ballot. Under secrecy, no partner can verify who defected. The template’s clause 6.20 is headed by a reference to “coalition discipline”, but its operative text only restates that voting must follow the law. That is correct, and it is also empty as a commitment device. The secrecy question is genuinely contested and should not be resolved by guidelines. Professor de Visser has said open voting for mayors and speakers would aid transparency, while others argue that secrecy protects councillors from intimidation, citing the violence councillors have faced.
The Constitutional Court’s 2017 judgment in UDM v Speaker of the National Assembly, in a different context (a motion against the President), accepted that a presiding officer may prescribe a secret ballot and discussed its protective value for conscientious voting. What the Guidelines can do is help parties design around the verification gap, through transparency, early warning and graduated responses, rather than pretending that discipline can be enforced where votes are secret. This will also mirror other solutions already used globally.
The template also has a gap that Ivor Chipkin identifies in a recent commentary. Clause 6.11 requires notice of any motion that may lead to the removal of an office-bearer, but it does not commit partners to refer approaches from outside the coalition to the Caucus before entertaining them. The most common route to collapse in South African metros has been a partner or a defector negotiating with the opposition.
4. “Sufficient consensus” may institutionalise the problem Clause 6.2 provides that where consensus is impossible, “sufficient consensus” applies: two or more parties who together form a majority in the council may take a decision binding on the others. In a bare-majority coalition that rule is empty, because every partner is needed. In a larger coalition it lets a subset outvote a partner, a coalition within the coalition. Clause 9.3 then says the agreement remains valid for those that still command a majority when a party leaves. Read together, the template can convert a dispute over a decision into a path to expulsion, and the outvoted party’s best response is to exit. The template also draws categories it does not define. Clause 6.4 says consensus is not needed on “non-essential matters”, while clause 7.10 speaks of matters “fundamental to the continued operation of the Coalition”. Without a schedule identifying what is foundational (for example the budget, the IDP, motions of removal and the appointment of the municipal manager), each category becomes its own dispute.
Michael Tsebelis’s work on veto players is relevant: every additional partner whose agreement is needed makes policy change harder. Section 3.2 says grand coalitions tend to be more stable. That may be true of survival, but the Guidelines should be candid that it comes at the cost of more veto players, more bargaining and potentially slower decisions. I deal with the best management strategies for veto players in my upcoming book on South Africa’s geopolitical position and options.
5. Allocation of offices: a sound instinct with unsupported reasoning
Section 4.16 advises against allocating the most powerful positions, executive mayor or mayor, to the smallest parties or independent councillors. It says the practice goes “against what the voters intended” and that experience shows it very often fails. No evidence is cited. In a proportional representation system, voters choose parties, not mayors, so the claim about intent is rhetorical rather than empirical, and no reference supports the assertion about experience. The instinct has support. Gamson’s Law, one of the best-established regularities in coalition research, observes that offices tend to be distributed roughly in proportion to the seats each party brings. And there are real accountability and capacity concerns when a very small party holds the top office. But the guidance misses what the negotiation literature on interests and positions would predict.
A small pivotal party that demands the mayoralty usually wants recognition, influence and protection against being outvoted, as we have seen in the last few days. Where policy commitments are unenforceable, office is the only credible currency it can obtain. The Guidelines offer substitutes (a portfolio seat, a section 79 chair, a subcouncil) but not assurances with teeth, such as a schedule of agreed red lines or guaranteed prior consultation on defined matters. Without those, advice to accept a lesser office asks small partners to accept more risk for less. Here, possibly unintentionally, the Guidelines could serve a positive face saving function, if it can be managed as a prescribed solution.
6. Exit and termination: some contradictions
Clause 7.10 says that when the mechanisms are exhausted on matters fundamental to the coalition, the parties “must formally review whether the Coalition can continue”. Clause 9.1 says that where disputes on key issues cannot be resolved after the dispute resolution process, “the Agreement is terminated”. One calls for a review; the other treats termination as automatic. Neither prescribes a notice period, a managed handover, or what happens to office-bearers on exit. I suppose you could squint and reconcile the wording, but it is another argument waiting to happen.
A second inconsistency concerns senior appointments. Clause 7.10 lists “the appointment of municipal manager, or senior managers reporting to the municipal manager” among decisions whose deadlock can trigger a review of the coalition. Yet section 5.7 says that coalition allocation of senior appointments is illegal, and section 4.15.1 reserves administrative appointments to the lawful decision-maker. A coalition may of course agree to support a lawful, merit-based process, and the council must vote. But the document should say so expressly, otherwise the template invites the very practice that section 5.7 condemns.
Exit design matters for stability. Albert Hirschman’s classic account of exit, voice and loyalty suggests that voice mechanisms work best when the exit option is clear and costly enough to be taken seriously, and when there are protocols for exercising it. A vague exit clause encourages surprise exits. A defined one encourages earlier voice. Conflicts costs for breach must be pre-determined, and understood. That is probably a separate discussion on its own.
7. Provincial support is promised but thin
Section 1.3 says the Guidelines contain “guidance on leadership to ensure administrative continuity, and what support the provincial government can provide”. In the text I would prefer to see greater specificity, as there is no dedicated treatment of provincial support. It appears in fragments: section 4.14.4 tells a stuck municipality to record its reasons, take legal advice and “promptly request provincial support”, and mentions section 139(1) of the Constitution (with the caution that dissolution under section 139(1)(c) needs exceptional circumstances); section 5.1 refers to assistance by the MEC; and section 5.3.1 mentions that the MEC may make standard rules of order available.
The Minister’s media statement also calls on provinces to distribute the Guidelines, monitor compliance and intervene. What may read as detail and clarity seem, to me, like litigation waiting to happen. Two difficulties arise, as examples. A section 139 intervention is a heavy instrument that exists for serious failure, not for facilitation. And the MEC is a political office-holder whose party may have a stake in the outcome, so neutrality cannot be assumed. What is missing is the middle ground: early, facilitative, genuinely impartial help (convening, mediator panels, legal advice, templates), together with objective triggers for when it is offered.
8. Timing, and the negotiation phase
The Guidelines advise parties to begin negotiating early, but they appeared one day before the statutory 14-day period started. That is not the Department’s fault, since the Bill’s proposed extension to 30 days has not been enacted, but it shapes usability. The document’s section 2 on collaboration is brief and says little about the negotiation phase itself: who convenes, what ground rules apply, how information is shared and how confidentiality is handled. Fisher and Ury’s emphasis on preparation and process, and Zartman’s on timing, suggest that this early phase is where many coalitions are made or lost. Commentators, such as the recent Daily Maverick “negotiator’s rulebook”, are filling this gap.
None of it reflects the balance between modern conflict management and political negotiation. The definition of instability also lacks thresholds. Section 1.2 says instability is present when it “takes long” to elect office-bearers, and section 3.2 lists a mayor being voted out as an example, yet section 1.2 also says that a quick replacement may have no negative impact. Without thresholds, no one can tell when the framework’s warning signs have been triggered.
9. Stability’s other half: accountability
The document balances motions of no-confidence fairly, but it says little about performance. If stability mechanisms succeed in keeping an underperforming executive in office, the cost falls on residents. The FW de Klerk Foundation has voiced this concern about the Bill’s 12-month limit, asking what protects residents when a governing arrangement survives but performance declines. The Guidelines mention section 79 oversight committees (5.4.3), but not Municipal Public Accounts Committees, performance reporting, or any link between the coalition’s annual review (8.2) and delivery. As written, that review looks at how the Agreement functions, not at whether services have improved.
Practical improvements for the trenches
The following proposals are designed to be adopted by councils and parties in the coming days, without waiting for legislation. Each is lawful in the sense that it concerns political agreement and municipal preparation, not the fettering of statutory powers.
1. A standing, neutral dispute facility:
Provinces, SALGA and independent bodies could jointly maintain a panel of vetted mediators and evaluators (retired judges, experienced local government practitioners, trained mediators) from which coalition partners choose by agreement. The MEC’s office would convene and fund the panel but not decide disputes. The template’s clause 7.4 should change “may” to “must”: before termination of the agreement, or before a partner supports a motion to remove an office-bearer, the parties must have used the facility. Timelines should be set: for example, seven days for a facilitated conversation and fourteen for mediation, subject to statutory deadlines.
2. A two-stage agreement:
With 14 days available, in theory if not in practice, a full programme is unrealistic. A short “heads of terms” signed within the window would cover offices, the budget calendar, red lines, the dispute clause, exit notice and publication. The fuller policy agreement would follow within 90 days, as the template already envisages for the IDP and budget (clause 5.2). Staging lowers the cost of the first agreement and lets trust accumulate before the hardest trade-offs. This step-by-step approach can give the parties space in which they show progress, rebuilt a working model of trust, and start getting the real wheels turning.
3. A graduated ladder with a rights-based rung:
The template should provide early warning (a written notice of concern), facilitated conversation, mediation, expert determination of narrow questions (is this a breach? does this budget accord with agreed priorities?), and only then a formal review of the coalition. A short schedule of foundational matters should be attached, listing which decisions need every partner’s assent and which can be taken by a majority, replacing the undefined “essential” and “fundamental” categories. This is modern conflict best practice, it is simple to design and easy to keep track of.
4. An exit and removal protocol:
The template should adopt a single clear rule on termination, replacing the 7.10 and 9.1 inconsistency. It should require written notice (for example 30 days) before a partner withdraws support, an obligation to attend facilitation during that period, a handover protocol, and an express statement that statutory duties continue (7.10 already says this). A removal protocol should require that approaches from outside the coalition be referred to the Caucus before any partner entertains them, as Chipkin suggests. All of this should align with the Bill’s notice and 12-month provisions if they are enacted.
5. Early-warning indicators and tripwires:
Municipal managers could report monthly against a short dashboard: time taken to achieve a quorum, days a key office has been vacant, slippage against the budget and IDP calendar, and items deferred for lack of a majority. Objective thresholds would trigger an offer of facilitated support from the province, so that support does not depend on a political request for help. Such thresholds would also give section 1.2’s language about instability that “takes long” an operational meaning.
6. A clearer provincial role:
Each province should publish a facilitative support offer (convening, panels, legal advice, template rules of order), reserve section 139 for its constitutional purpose as a last resort, and declare conflicts where the MEC’s party has a stake in the outcome. SALGA and academic institutions can supply neutral capacity.
7. Coalition literacy within the first 30 days:
Section 5.6 already recommends that terms of reference be workshopped with councillors and senior managers at the start of the term. That workshop should include a short negotiation and caucus-break simulation. Councillors who have practised a caucus break are more likely to use one.
8. A published annual performance review:
The agreement’s annual review (clause 8.2) should be supplemented by a short public report on delivery against the IDP and the agreement, with support for MPACs. Stability and accountability reinforce one another when residents can see what the arrangement produced.
Conclusion: build the learning loop
The Guidelines reflect a careful effort to give municipalities a lawful and practical framework at short notice, and their best features are those that will outlast the present crisis: the separation between political agreement and municipal decision, the insistence on administrative continuity, and the candour about what is and is not law.
The document’s weaknesses are largely those of a first iteration: a dispute system without a neutral element, commitment tools that rely on goodwill, a template with internal inconsistencies, an evidence base that is asserted rather than shown, and a promised provincial role that is not yet defined. None of that is fatal, and all of it can be improved. We should rather build the improvements on the fly, as part of a dynamic, living document, than sit around and haggle until we reach the mythical perfect agreement. The Department has said that it will review the Guidelines against any enacted amendments. It could usefully go further.
It could invite structured feedback from councils, SALGA, parties and academics after the 26 November deadline, and it could track which coalition agreements adopted which provisions and how they fared. A framework that learns will serve South Africans better than one that is merely issued. Coalition governance is now a permanent feature of local government. The task for all of us, in government, in parties and in civil society, is to make it work for the people who need water, electricity and refuse removal, whoever holds the mayoral chain. We have run out of time, second chances…and patience.
Resource and further reading list:
Andre Vlok can be contacted at andre@conflict1.co.za for any further information.
(c) Andre Vlok
November 2026