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:
“Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)
“The will to change begins in the body not in the mind
My politics is in my body, accruing and expanding with every act of resistance and each of my failures.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)