Politics
The municipal council consists of nineteen members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Ten councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in ten wards, while the remaining nine 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 the Democratic Alliance won a majority of ten seats on the council.
The following table shows the results of the 2011 election.
| Party | Votes | Vote % | Seats | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ward | List | Total | ||||
| Democratic Alliance | 23,580 | 50.5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | |
| African National Congress | 17,875 | 38.3 | 4 | 3 | 7 | |
| Congress of the People | 3,197 | 6.9 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Independent | 1,132 | 2.4 | 1 | — | 1 | |
| African Christian Democratic Party | 713 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Cape Party | 165 | 0.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 46,662 | 100.0 | 10 | 9 | 19 | |
| Spoilt votes | 987 | |||||
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.
Read more about this topic: Knysna Local Municipality
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The word “revolution” itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the “revolution” of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the “revolving door” of a politics which has “liberated” women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a “biological” need.”
—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)
“Politics is repetition. It is not change. Change is something beyond what we call politics. Change is the essence politics is supposed to be the means to bring into being.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)