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:
“Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God’s infinite mercy, a last resort.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“I have come to the conclusion that the closer people are to what may be called the front lines of government ... the easier it is to see the immediate underbrush, the individual tree trunks of the moment, and to forget the nobility the usefulness and the wide extent of the forest itself.... They forget that politics after all is only an instrument through which to achieve Government.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“From the beginning, the placement of [Clarence] Thomas on the high court was seen as a political end justifying almost any means. The full story of his confirmation raises questions not only about who lied and why, but, more important, about what happens when politics becomes total war and the truth—and those who tell it—are merely unfortunate sacrifices on the way to winning.”
—Jane Mayer, U.S. journalist, and Jill Abramson b. 1954, U.S. journalist. Strange Justice, p. 8, Houghton Mifflin (1994)