Politics
The municipal council consists of eleven members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Six councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in six wards, while the remaining seven 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 won a majority on the council, with five seats going to the African National Congress (ANC), four to the Democratic Alliance (DA) and one each to the Congress of the People (COPE) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). The ANC formed a coalition with the PAC to govern the municipality. However, later in 2011 one DA ward councillor resigned from the party, triggering a by-election in which he stood for the ANC and won, giving the ANC an absolute majority of six seats on the council.
The following table shows the results of the 2011 election.
| Party | Votes | Vote % | Seats | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ward | List | Total | ||||
| African National Congress | 11,510 | 45.0 | 4 | 1 | 5 | |
| Democratic Alliance | 9,680 | 37.9 | 2 | 2 | 4 | |
| Congress of the People | 2,436 | 9.5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Pan Africanist Congress | 1,309 | 5.1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Independent | 510 | 2.0 | 0 | – | 0 | |
| The People's Independent Civic Organisation | 125 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 25,570 | 100.00 | 6 | 5 | 11 | |
| Spoilt votes | 518 | |||||
The local council sends two representatives to the council of the West Coast District Municipality: one from the ANC and one from the DA.
Read more about this topic: Cederberg Local Municipality
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures and makeshifts merely. They put off the day of settlement, and meanwhile the debt accumulates.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“His talk was like a spring, which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses:
It slipped from politics to puns,
It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.”
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–1839)
“One might imagine that a movement which is so preoccupied with the fulfillment of human potential would have a measure of respect for those who nourish its source. But politics make strange bedfellows, and liberated women have elected to become part of a long tradition of hostility to mothers.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)