Today’s post by Jacques Quass De Vos shows that the monthly share of South African newspaper articles related to metropolitan coalition and governance instability has steadily increased since 2010. The index accurately tracks times of high coalition formation and reaches its highest peaks near local election periods.

The second chart shows the frequency of coalition and governance instability-related news coverage for each metro in South Africa. Cape Town features far more prominently between 2010–2021 than from 2022 onward.
