Metsimaholo Local Municipality


Metsimaholo Municipality is a local municipality within the Fezile Dabi District Municipality, in the Free State province of South Africa. Metsimaholo means "big water" in Sesotho.

Main places

The South African [National Census of 2001|2001 census] divided the municipality into the following main places:
PlaceCodeArea PopulationMost spoken language
Bertha Village0.58666Sotho
Coalbrook0.6930Xhosa
Deneysville6.501,124Afrikaans
Holly Country0.93614Afrikaans
Metsimaholo0.793,193Sotho
Oranjeville7.73297Afrikaans
Refengkgotso5.6513,792Sotho
Richmond Valley0.37209Afrikaans
Sasolburg49.8224,568Afrikaans
Taaibos1.501,301Afrikaans
Vaal Power0.65798Sotho
Viljoensdrif2.49589Sotho
Zamdela10.2157,070Sotho
Remainder of the municipality1,651.3711,723Sotho

Politics

The municipal council consists of forty-six members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Twenty-three councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in twenty-three wards, while the remaining twenty-three are chosen from party lists so that the total number of party representatives is proportional to the number of votes received.
In the 2021 [South African municipal election|election of 1 November 2021], no party won a majority on the council. The Economic Freedom Fighters formed a coalition with the African National Congress. The EFF's Selloane Motjeane was elected mayor, while Lucas Fisher of the ANC was elected Speaker and Fikile Msokweni of the ANC the Council Whip. However, that coalition collapsed and Jeff Zwane of the Democratic [Alliance |Democratic Alliance] was subsequently elected mayor. In 2023, Zwane was voted out of office in a motion of no confidence, and Jack Malindi of the African Independent Congress was subsequently elected mayor.
The following table shows the results of the 2021 election.