City of Cape Town
Encyclopedia
The City of Cape Town is the metropolitan municipality
Metropolitan municipality (South Africa)
In South Africa, a metropolitan municipality or Category A municipality is a municipality which executes all the functions of local government for a city or conurbation...

 which governs the city of Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, South Africa and its suburbs and exurbs
Commuter town
A commuter town is an urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood. Many commuter towns act as suburbs of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily, and many suburbs are commuter towns...

. As of 2007, it had a population of 3,497,097.

The remote Prince Edward Islands
Prince Edward Islands
The Prince Edward Islands are two small islands in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean that are part of South Africa. The islands, named Marion Island and Prince Edward Island, are located at ....

 are deemed to be part of the City of Cape Town, specifically of ward
Electoral wards of the City of Cape Town
This is a list of 105 electoral wards of the City of Cape Town, with the councillor and corresponding geographies listed.-Wards:...

 55.

History

Cape Town first received local self-government in 1839, with the promulgation of a municipal ordinance by the government of the Cape Colony
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...

. When it was created, the Cape Town municipality governed only the central part of the city known as the City Bowl
City Bowl
The City Bowl is a part of Cape Town in South Africa. It is a natural amphitheatre-shaped area bordered by Table Bay and defined by the mountains of Signal Hill, Lion's Head, Table Mountain and Devil's Peak....

, and as the city expanded, new suburbs became new municipalities, until by 1902 there were 10 separate municipalities in the Cape Peninsula
Cape Peninsula
The Cape Peninsula is a generally rocky peninsula that juts out for 75 km into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope...

. During the 20th century, many of the suburban municipalities became unsustainable and merged into the Cape Town municipality or combined with other suburbs; but at the end of apartheid in 1994 the metropolitan area was still divided up into several separate municipalities.

As part of the post-1994 reforms, municipal government experienced a complete overhaul. In 1996 the Cape Town metropolitan area was divided into six municipalities – Cape Town/Central, Tygerberg
Tygerberg
Tygerberg is one of the northern suburbs of Cape Town in South Africa. It is also the name the range of hills above the town....

, South Peninsula, Blaauwberg, Oostenberg and Helderberg
Helderberg
Helderberg is a wine-producing area in the Western Cape of South Africa.Originally known as the 'Hottentots-Holland' area, it was renamed 'Helderberg' by the City of Cape Town following concerns about possible racist connotations in the name...

 – along with a Metropolitan Administration to oversee the whole metropolitan area. At the time of the 2000 municipal elections
South African municipal election, 2000
Municipal elections were held in South Africa on 5 December 2000 to elect members to the local governing councils in the municipalities of South Africa.-Results:...

 these various structures were merged to form the City of Cape Town as a single metropolitan municipality
Metropolitan municipality (South Africa)
In South Africa, a metropolitan municipality or Category A municipality is a municipality which executes all the functions of local government for a city or conurbation...

 governing the whole metropolitan area. It is for this reason that the City of Cape Town is sometimes referred to as the "Unicity".

Government

Cape Town is governed by a 221-member city council
Cape Town City Council
The City Council is the legislative body of the City of Cape Town. It is composed of 221 councillors elected by a system of mixed member proportional representation. 111 councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting, one from each of the 111 electoral wards of the City, while the other 110...

, which chooses the executive mayor, who in turn chooses an 11-member Mayoral Committee
Mayoral Committee of the City of Cape Town
-Mayoral Committee System :In terms of the Municipal Structures Act of 1998, the City of Cape Town has opted for the mayoral committee system also known as the Mayco system whereby executive authority is vested in the executive mayor, who in turn chooses an 11-member mayoral committee, which is...

. The city is divided into 111 electoral wards
Electoral wards of the City of Cape Town
This is a list of 105 electoral wards of the City of Cape Town, with the councillor and corresponding geographies listed.-Wards:...

; each ward directly elects one member of the council. The other 110 councillors are elected by a system of party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation in elections in which multiple candidates are elected...

. The city manager is the non-political head of the city's administration.

After the creation of the "unicity" from the six previous municipalities, the city was divided into 16 subcouncils, later increased to the present 23. Subcouncils are consist of geographically clustered wards with proportional councillors assigned to them and led by a subcouncil chairman who is elected by a majority vote of each subcouncil.

Executive incumbents

With the Democratic Alliance (DA) having won an absolute majority of council seats in the election of 18 May 2011, its mayoral candidate Patricia de Lille
Patricia de Lille
Patricia de Lille is a South African politician and Mayor of Cape Town. She is also, concurrently, the leader of the Independent Democrats, a South African political party which she formed in 2003 during a floor-crossing window...

 was formally elected mayor on 1 June. Before the election, the executive mayor
Mayor of Cape Town
The Mayor of Cape Town is the head of the local government of Cape Town, South Africa; currently that government takes the form of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. In the past, the position of Mayor has varied between that of an executive mayor actively governing the city and that...

 was Dan Plato
Dan Plato
Daniel "Dan" Plato is the Minister for Community Safety in the Western Cape and the former Executive Mayor of Cape Town, South Africa.-References:...

 of the DA. He was preceded by Helen Zille
Helen Zille
Helen Zille is the Premier of the Western Cape, a member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, leader of South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance political party, and a former Mayor of Cape Town.Zille is a former journalist and anti-apartheid activist, and famously exposed the truth...

, now Premier of the Western Cape. The current executive Deputy Mayor is Ian Neilson
Ian Neilson
Ian Douglas Neilson is the Executive Deputy Mayor of the City of Cape Town, South Africa. He is also the Mayoral Committee member for Finance....

.

The current city manager is Achmat Ebrahim, who was appointed in April 2006.

Council seat breakdown

The following table shows the distribution of seats in the council after the election of 18 May 2011:

Electoral history

In the 2006 local government election
South African municipal election, 2006
Municipal elections were held in South Africa on 1 March 2006, to elect members to the local governing councils in the municipalities of South Africa...

, the Democratic Alliance (DA) was the largest single party and took 90 of the 210 seats on the council, ahead of the African National Congress (ANC)
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...

 which took 81 seats, but with no party holding a majority. The Independent Democrats (ID) led by Patricia de Lille
Patricia de Lille
Patricia de Lille is a South African politician and Mayor of Cape Town. She is also, concurrently, the leader of the Independent Democrats, a South African political party which she formed in 2003 during a floor-crossing window...

 initially took 23 seats.

Helen Zille was elected executive mayor on 15 March 2006 by a 3-vote margin of 106 votes against former incumbent executive mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo
Nomaindia Mfeketo
Nomaindia Mfeketo is the current Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa. She was the mayor of Cape Town in South Africa in 2000 and again from 2002 to 2006....

 who received 103 votes, including 22 votes from the ID (one rebel ID councillor voted for Zille). Helen Zille formed a DA-led coalition, also known as the Multi-Party Government with the support of six smaller parties who collectively became known as the Multi-Party Forum parties with a combined total of 105 seats out of 210 (a narrow one-seat majority) in the council. Andrew Arnolds of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) was elected executive deputy mayor and Jacob "Dirk" Smit of the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) was elected the speaker who also serves as the chairperson of the council meetings. The DA gained one seat in a June 2006 by-election held in Tafelsig (Mitchell's Plain
Mitchell's Plain
Mitchells Plain is a largely coloured township about 20 km from the city of Cape Town. It is one of South Africa's largest townships. It is located on the Cape Flats on the False Bay coast between Strandfontein and Khayelitsha...

) which was taken from the ID when the rebel ward councillor Sheval Arendse resigned to join the DA in order to protest the ID decision to vote with the ANC in the mayoral election and this doubled the coalition's majority to two seats. In January 2007 the DA-led coalition had increased its majority, by introducing the Independent Democrats (22 seats) to the coalition following the expulsion of the Africa Muslim Party
Africa Muslim Party
The Africa Muslim Party is a South African Muslim political party. It was founded in 1994, with Gulam Sabdia as Chairman and Imtiaz Suleman as national leader, and competed in the 1994 elections with few votes to account for...

 (three seats) from the coalition when it supported a failed bid by controversial councillor Badih Chabaan (who demanded the deputy mayor's post) to oust Helen Zille and the DA and form a coalition with the ANC. As a result of the ID's support, the DA-led coalition increased its majority of two seats (106 seats) to 40 seats (125 seats) resulting in a much more stable coalition. As a result of the ID joining the coalition, Andrew Arnolds stepped down to allow Charlotte Williams of the ID to became executive deputy mayor on 31 January 2007. In the pivotal Hout Bay
Hout Bay
Hout Bay is the name of a coastal suburb of Cape Town, South Africa with a mix of neighbourhoods from the very rich to the very poor. It lies in a valley on the Atlantic Seaboard of the Cape Peninsula and is twenty kilometres south of the Central Business District of Cape Town...

 by-election in February 2007, the DA retained a safe seat and strengthened its position in Hangberg, a coloured fishing community.

During the recent floor-crossing period in September 2007, the DA increased their share of seats by four seats from 91 to 95, while the ID lost six seats, dropping to 16 seats from 22, primarily at the expense of the DA which gained two ID councillors, and the newly-formed National People's Party (NPP), led by controversial former councillor Badih Chabaan, which gained three ID councillors and one AMP councillor. Another new party was formed named the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which took one seat from the ID as well. The ANC did not lose or gain a seat and stood at 81 seats. Following the floor-crossing period, Charlotte Williams of the ID announced her resignation as deputy mayor and there was uncertainty over who would replace her. Under the terms of the coalition agreement since March 2006 the position of deputy mayor was to be given to the ACDP. However Mayor Helen Zille had rejected four of the ACDP's nominations for the post and insisted that a DA member take the post. A row broke out between the two parties when Zille stated that the ACDP did not hold the balance of power and was stubborn over controlling the post for the DA. However after more than a month of the impasse which was accompanied by several rounds of negotiations, Zille conceded the post to the ACDP. On 31 October 2007, Grant Haskin
Grant Haskin
Grant Haskin is the former Executive Deputy Mayor of Cape Town, where he also served briefly as acting Mayor City of Cape Town, South Africa.-Early life and education:...

 of the ACDP was elected the third executive deputy mayor since Zille came to power. The DA lost one council seat after a by-election in Macassar
Macassar
-Places:*Makassar, a city in Indonesia**Makassar Strait, a strait in Indonesia*Macassar, Western Cape, a town in South Africa*Macassar Village, Western Cape, an informal settlement in South Africa*Macassar, Mozambique, a village in north-eastern Mozambique...

 in March 2008 which was unexpectedly won by the ID in an upset victory for a party which was a major partner in the coalition. Thus the by-election outcome had no impact on the DA-led coalition's position in the council other than to bolster the ID's position after it was dealt a blow in the floor-crossings.

After the March 2006 local government elections
South African municipal election, 2006
Municipal elections were held in South Africa on 1 March 2006, to elect members to the local governing councils in the municipalities of South Africa...

 the DA controlled thirteen subcouncils, followed by the ANC with seven, the ACDP with two, and the ID with one. After the floor crossing in September 2007 the subcouncils were reconstituted with fifteen going to the DA, four to the ID, two to the ACDP while the ANC retained only two after losing five subcouncils.

Adjacent municipalities

  • Swartland Local Municipality
    Swartland Local Municipality
    Swartland Municipality is a municipality located in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Malmesbury is the seat of the municipality. As of 2007, it had a population of 77,524...

    , West Coast District Municipality
    West Coast District Municipality
    The West Coast District Municipality is a district municipality located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its municipality code is DC1. Moorreesburg is the seat of the district...

     (north)
  • Drakenstein Local Municipality
    Drakenstein Local Municipality
    Drakenstein Municipality is a local municipality located within the Cape Winelands District Municipality, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. As of 2007, it had a population of 217,089...

    , Cape Winelands District Municipality
    Cape Winelands District Municipality
    The Cape Winelands District Municipality, formerly the Boland District Municipality, is a district municipality located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. As of 2007, it had a population of 712,413...

     (northeast)
  • Stellenbosch Local Municipality
    Stellenbosch Local Municipality
    Stellenbosch Local Municipality is the local municipality that governs the towns of Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Pniel, and the surrounding rural areas, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It covers an area of and, , had a population of 200,524 people in 36,413 households...

    , Cape Winelands District Municipality (northeast)
  • Theewaterskloof Local Municipality
    Theewaterskloof Local Municipality
    Theewaterskloof Municipality is a local municipality located within the Overberg District Municipality, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. As of 2007, the population was 86,719. Its municipality code is WC031...

    , Overberg District Municipality
    Overberg District Municipality
    The Overberg District Municipality is a district municipality located in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its municipality code is DC3.- Adjacent municipalities :*Cape Winelands District Municipality *Eden District Municipality...

     (southeast)
  • Overstrand Local Municipality
    Overstrand Local Municipality
    Overstrand Municipality is a local municipality located within the Overberg District Municipality, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. As of 2007, it had a population of 74,547.-Government:...

    , Overberg District Municipality (southeast)

The City of Cape Town is also bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and west.

See also

  • Cape Town
    Cape Town
    Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

  • Metropolitan municipality (South Africa)
    Metropolitan municipality (South Africa)
    In South Africa, a metropolitan municipality or Category A municipality is a municipality which executes all the functions of local government for a city or conurbation...

  • List of Cape Town suburbs
  • Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
    Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
    The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is a non-racial popular movement made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa...


External links

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