Politics
The municipal council consists of thirteen members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Seven councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in seven wards, while the remaining six are chosen from party lists so that the total number of party representatives is proportional to the number of votes received. In the election of 18 May 2011 no party obtained a majority; the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African National Congress won six seats each, with the remaining seat going to the Congress of the People (COPE). The DA and COPE formed a coalition to govern the municipality.
The following table shows the results of the 2011 election.
| Party | Votes | Vote % | Seats | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ward | List | Total | ||||
| Democratic Alliance | 16,502 | 47.6 | 2 | 4 | 6 | |
| African National Congress | 15,780 | 45.5 | 5 | 1 | 6 | |
| Congress of the People | 939 | 2.7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Independent | 780 | 2.2 | 0 | — | 0 | |
| African Christian Democratic Party | 572 | 1.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Plettenberg Bay Community Forum | 82 | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Cape Party | 44 | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 33,919 | 100.0 | 7 | 6 | 13 | |
| Spoilt votes | 490 | |||||
The local council sends two representatives to the council of the Eden District Municipality: one from the Democratic Alliance and one from the African National Congress.
This municipality has been dogged by mismanagement, service delivery problems as well as corruption involving a former city manager appointed by former Euan Vernon Wells Wildeman who was replaced by Mvimbi (who was the former executive mayor of Eden District Municipality) in March 2006. Formerly known as Plettenberg Bay, the Bitou Local Municipality has been an ANC stronghold from the first multi-racial local government elections in 1996 until the elections of 2011.
Read more about this topic: Bitou Local Municipality
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Our family talked a lot at table, and only two subjects were taboo: politics and personal troubles. The first was sternly avoided because Father ran a nonpartisan daily in a small town, with some success, and did not wish to express his own opinions in public, even when in private.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)