Karoo Hoogland Municipality () is a local municipality within the Namakwa District Municipality, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The municipality incorporates the towns of Williston, Fraserburg and Sutherland. Although the towns are separated by more than 100 km by road, they share many administrative tasks.
Hoogland is an Afrikaans word meaning "highland" and Karoo is a Khoekhoe word meaning "hard" or "dry". The name reflects the area which has dry, arid and desert-like conditions.
In 2011, Karoo Hoogland elected the first mayor from the Congress of the People (COPE) party, Jan Julies, and a COPE-DA coalition took control of the council after the election of 18 May 2011. This lasted until the 2016 elections.
Main places The 2011 census divided the municipality into the following main places: Place Code Area (km2) Population Fraserburg 367003 98.9 3,029 Sutherland 367004 36.0 2,836 Williston 367001 77.9 3,368 Remainder 367002 32,061.1 3,356 Total 32,273.9 12,588
Demographics According to the 2022 South African census, the municipality had a population of 11,691 people. Of these, 83.8% identified as "Coloured," 12.8% as "White," and 2.3% as "Black African."https://citypopulation.de/en/southafrica/admin/northern_cape/NC066__karoo_hoogland/
Politics
The municipal council consists of eleven members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Six councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in six wards, while the remaining five 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 no party obtained a majority of seats on the council. The following table shows the results of the election.
Karoo Hoogland local election, 1 November 2021 Party Votes Seats Ward List Total % Ward List Total 1,815 1,803 3,618 40.8% 3 2 5 1,337 1,335 2,672 30.2% 3 0 3 962 994 1,956 22.1% 0 2 2 229 225 454 5.1% 0 1 1 42 60 102 1.2% 0 0 0 29 29 58 0.7% 0 0 0 Total 4,414 4,446 8,860 6 5 11 Valid votes 4,414 4,446 8,860 98.7% Spoilt votes 64 57 121 1.3% Total votes cast 4,478 4,503 8,981 Voter turnout 4,507 Registered voters 7,250 Turnout percentage 62.2%
On 8 December 2022 the PA/ANC coalition collapsed during a no confidence motion brought by the DA. Consequently the PA mayor Anthony Mietas was replaced by the DA’s Johan van der Colff.
References
External links Official website