Lesedi Local Municipality is an administrative area in the Sedibeng District of

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

is the seat of the municipality. During the first war of independence, Heidelberg served as capital of the

South African Republic The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it ...

, from 1880 to 1883. Lesedi is a

Sesotho Sotho () or Sesotho () or Southern Sotho is a Southern Bantu language of the Sotho–Tswana ("S.30") group, spoken primarily by the Basotho in Lesotho, where it is the national and official language; South Africa (particularly the Free ...

word meaning "light". The name was decided upon because the municipality represents the light of the area.

Politics

The municipal council consists of twenty-six members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Thirteen councillors are elected by

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

in thirteen wards, while the remaining thirteen 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 1 November 2021 the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

(ANC) won a plurality of seats on the council. The planned abolition of the Lesedi, and its absorption into Ekurhuleni after the 2016 municipal elections, was blocked by the

High Court of South Africa The High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law in South Africa. It is divided into nine provincial divisions, some of which sit in more than one location. Each High Court division has general jurisdiction over a defined geographical ...

in 2015. The following table shows the results of the 2021 election.

Main places

The 2001 census divided the municipality into the following main places:Lookup Tables - Statistics South Africa
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Management

In 2021 The Hawks arrested Mr Tshepo Malekana, development and planning manager at the municipality, for allegedly defrauding the municipality by selling vacant municipal land unlawfully and illegally between 2017 and 2019. He allegedly received cash payments totaling R100 million.

References

External links

Lesedi Local Municipality
{{Municipalities of Gauteng Local municipalities of the Sedibeng District Municipality