Politics
The municipal council consists of seven members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Four councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in four wards, while the remaining three 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 three seats each, and the Congress of the People (COPE) won the remaining seat. 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 | 2,500 | 40.5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| African National Congress | 2,335 | 37.8 | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Congress of the People | 556 | 9.0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| National People's Party | 429 | 6.9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| African Christian Democratic Party | 285 | 4.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| South African Progressive Civic Organisation | 71 | 1.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 6,176 | 100.0 | 4 | 3 | 7 | |
| Spoilt votes | 84 | |||||
The local council sends one representative, a member of the Democratic Alliance, to the council of the Central Karoo District Municipality.
Read more about this topic: Laingsburg Local Municipality
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“The newspaper reader says: this party is destroying itself through such mistakes. My higher politics says: a party that makes such mistakes is finished—it has lost its instinctive sureness.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)