Mantsopa Municipality () is a local municipality within the

Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality The Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality (; ) is one of the 5 Districts of South Africa, districts of the Free State (South African province), Free State province of South Africa. The seat is Witsieshoek. As of 2011, a majority of its 725,932 r ...

, 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 ...

Origin of the name

Basotho prophet 'Mantsopa Makhetha was a cousin to King

Moshoeshoe I Moshoeshoe I () ( – 11 March 1870) was the first king of Lesotho. He was the first son of Mokhachane, a minor Tribal chief, chief of the Bamokoteli lineage, a branch of the Koena tribe, Koena (crocodile) clan. In his youth, he helped his fat ...

, who banished her from the Kingdom when he suspected that her powers were greater than his. When she arrived at Modderpoort there were no houses and, according to legend, she stayed in a cave. In 1886 a group of men called The Brotherhood of St Augustine arrived at Modderpoort, and 'Mantsopa accommodated them in her cave. The missionaries decided to stay and they turned the cave into a chapel. 'Mantsopa later joined the church and was baptised and given the name Anna. 'Mantsopa's grave continues to be visited and offerings are still placed on or near it.

Main places

The 2001 census divided the municipality into the following main places:

Politics

The municipal council consists of eighteen 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 ...

. Nine 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 nine wards, while the remaining nine 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 1 November 2021 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 eleven seats on the council. The following table shows the results of the election.

References

External links

* http://www.mantsopa.fs.gov.za/ {{coord, 29, 11, 40, S, 27, 27, 22, E, region:ZA_type:adm3rd_source:kolossus-itwiki, display=title Local municipalities of the Thabo Mofutsanyane District Municipality