Government
Cape Town's local government is the City of Cape Town, which is a metropolitan municipality. Cape Town is governed by a 221-member city council. The city is divided into 111 electoral wards; each ward directly elects one member of the council, whilst the other 110 councillors are elected by a system of party-list proportional representation. The Executive Mayor and Executive Deputy Mayor are chosen by the city council.
In the local government elections of 18 May 2011, the Democratic Alliance (DA) won an outright majority, taking 135 of the 221 council seats. The African National Congress, the national ruling party, received 73 seats. As a result of this victory Patricia de Lille, the DA mayoral candidate, was inaugurated as Executive Mayor on 1 June.
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Famous quotes containing the word government:
“Vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous. To be convinced of this we need only represent, on the one hand, the numberless benefits which result from vanity, as industry, the arts, fashions, politeness, and taste; and on the other, the infinite evils which spring from the pride of certain nations, a laziness, poverty, a total neglect of everything.”
—Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu (1689–1755)
“I feel a sincere wish indeed to see our government brought back to it’s republican principles, to see that kind of government firmly fixed, to which my whole life has been devoted. I hope we shall now see it so established, as that when I retire, it may be under full security that we are to continue free and happy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised.”
—John Caldwell Calhoun (1782–1850)