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Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality (; ) is a local municipality within the
Thabo Mofutsanyane District Municipality The Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality (; ) is one of the 5 districts of the Free State province of South Africa. The seat is Witsieshoek. As of 2011, a majority of its 725,932 residents spoke Sesotho. The district code is DC19 Geography Ne ...
, in the Free State province of
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
. It encompasses substantially all of the former
bantustan A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu peoples, Bantu homeland, a Black people, black homeland, a Khoisan, black state or simply known as a homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party (South Africa), National Party administration of the ...
of
QwaQwa QwaQwa was a Bantustan ("homeland") in the central eastern part of South Africa. It encompassed a very small region of in the east of the former South African province of Orange Free State, bordering Lesotho. Its capital was Witsieshoek. It was ...
, except for the small enclave at
Botshabelo Botshabelo, meaning "a place of refuge", is a large Township (South Africa), township set up in 1979. It is located east of Bloemfontein in the present-day Free State (South African province), Free State province of South Africa. Botshabelo is no ...
. The population is almost entirely
Basotho The Sotho (), also known as the Basotho (), are a Sotho-Tswana ethnic group indigenous to Southern Africa. They primarily inhabit the regions of Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. The ancestors of the Sotho people are believed to h ...
. The municipality is named after the
Drakensberg mountains The Drakensberg ( Zulu: uKhahlamba, Sotho: Maloti, Afrikaans: Drakensberge) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau. The Great Escarpment reaches its greatest elevation – within the ...
(known as ''Maluti'' in
Sesotho Sotho (), also known as ''Sesotho'' (), Southern Sotho, or ''Sesotho sa Borwa'' is a Southern Bantu languages, Southern Bantu language spoken in Lesotho as its national language and South Africa where it is an official language. Like all Ba ...
). The peak is known as the Sentinel, which is called ''Phofung'' in Sesotho.


Problems

Maluti-a-Phofung is one of the very poor municipalities in the Free State; as of 2011 over 82% live below the poverty line. Prior to 1994, the area was relatively prosperous with over 250,000 people employed in the textile and furniture industries, mostly at low wages. The new South African government terminated industrial subsidies. That and labor agitation for higher wages made the factories uneconomic, and over the next decade most of the factories closed. The last one closed in 2010. At present government is the largest employer followed by a weak retail employment. The municipality itself has been in substantial debt for decades, and owes a considerable debt to both the regional water and electrical utilities (R3,769 million).


Municipal services

The failure to deliver adequate municipal services has been a chronic problem since at least 2000. As a result, there have been a number of protests by the populace, among which was the one in Harrismith in 2004. In 2018, local residents held a mass protest concerning the failure to provide municipal services. The protest turned into a riot, shopping malls were looted, and one man was fatally shot. As a result, Cogta (the Free State Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) intervened and administration was removed from the mayor and local council and placed directly under Cogta, a move welcomed by the South African Municipal Workers' Union. As of June 2022, there have been some improvements, with delivery of water stabilising, and a better relationship with
Eskom Eskom Hld SOC Ltd or Eskom is a South African electricity public utility. Eskom was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) (). Eskom represents South Africa in the Southern African Power Pool. The utility is the larg ...
.


Politics

The
municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...
consists of sixty-nine members elected by
mixed-member proportional representation Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a type of representation provided by some mixed electoral system, mixed electoral systems which combine local Winner-take-all system, winner-take-all elections with a Compensation (el ...
. Thirty-five councillors are elected by
first-past-the-post voting First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...
in thirty-five wards, while the remaining thirty-four are chosen from
party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can c ...
s so that the total number of party representatives is proportional to the number of votes received. In the election of 3 August 2016 the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
(ANC) won a majority of forty-seven seats on the council.


Election results

The 2021 election saw the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
(ANC) lose its majority for the first time. Although it still finished with the most seats, a rival grouping led by the MAP16 Civic Movement, founded by a group of ANC councillors who had been expelled for voting to unseat the ANC mayor, who was facing corruption charges, formed a coalition to take control. Maluti-a-Phofung became the first local municipality in the Free State not to be governed by the ANC. The coalition consists of the MAP16 Civic Movement,
Economic Freedom Fighters The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is a South African communist and black nationalist political party. It was founded by expelled former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema, and his allies, on 26 July 20 ...
,
Dikwankwetla Party Dikwankwetla Party of South Africa is a political party in the Free State (South African province), Free State province, South Africa. The party was founded by Kenneth Mopeli in 1975. The party governed the bantustan state of QwaQwa from 1975 t ...
,
African Transformation Movement The African Transformation Movement (ATM) is a political party in South Africa. It was formed with the backing of the South African Council of Messianic Churches in Christ (SACMCC), which together are supported by millions of congregants. Hist ...
,
African Independent Congress The African Independent Congress (AIC) is a minor political party in South Africa. Founded in Matatiele on 12 December 2005, the AIC was a protest against the location of the area within the boundaries of the Eastern Cape province rather than ...
and the
South African Royal Kingdoms Organization South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
, supported by the Democratic Alliance and
Freedom Front Plus The Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus or FF+; , ''VF Plus'') is a right-wing political party in South Africa that was formed (as the Freedom Front) in 1994. It is led by Corné Mulder. Since 2024, it is a part of the current South African Third Cabin ...
. The following table shows the results of the election.


2019 municipal by-elections

In 2019, the
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
(ANC) expelled sixteen of its municipal councillors (fifteen ward councillors and one PR councillor) for defying a Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) decision by siding with opposition parties to remove executive mayor Vusi Tshabalala. All fifteen ward councillors contested the by-elections as independent candidates in their respective wards on 28 August 2019, of whom ten were elected. The ANC managed to retain five wards, despite strenuous canvassing by the provincial leadership and former premier
Ace Magashule Elias Sekgobelo "Ace" Magashule (born 3 November 1959) is a South African politician and former anti-apartheid activist who served as the Secretary General of the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa's governing party, between December ...
. The table below depicts the new composition of the council.


Main places

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


Notes and references


External links


Official website
{{Authority control Local municipalities of the Thabo Mofutsanyane District Municipality