Mkhondo Local Municipality


Mkhondo Municipality is a local municipality within the Gert Sibande District Municipality, in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. Piet Retief is the seat of the municipality.

Main places

The 2001 census divided the municipality into the following main places:
PlaceCodeArea PopulationMost spoken language
Amsterdam4.361,452Swati
Dirkiesdorp3.30523Zulu
Driefontein53.6515,319Zulu
Ethandakukhanya8.4924,867Zulu
KwaNgema12.131,003Zulu
KwaThandeka2.915,085Zulu
Ngema86.103,539Zulu
Piet Retief55.4113,052Zulu
Shabalala13.71807Zulu
Remainder of the municipality4,628.8477,246Zulu

Politics

The municipal council consists of thirty-eight members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Nineteen councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in nineteen wards, while the remaining nineteen 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 won a majority of twenty-one seats on the council.
The following table shows the results of the election.

Political assassinations

The municipality was described as "the epicentre of political assassinations" after a number of assassinations. In 2022, Sbonelo Mthembu accused former mayor Vusi Motha of having assassinated African National Congress regional secretary Gert Sibande. Mthembu himself was later assassinated. Motha stated that he had intended to sue Mthembu for defamation.