Dr Beyers Naudé Local Municipality is a new local municipality that was established by merging the Camdeboo, Ikwezi and Baviaans local municipalities in the Sarah Baartman District of the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. The decision to merge the municipalities was taken by the

Municipal Demarcation Board The Municipal Demarcation Board is an independent authority responsible for delimiting the boundaries of South African districts and municipalities and the boundaries of the electoral wards within those municipalities. General The Board was en ...

in 2015 but only took effect after

municipal elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...

on 3 August 2016. The new municipality is named after the

Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from Free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: ...

cleric and anti-

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

activist

Beyers Naudé Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naudé (10 May 1915 – 7 September 2004) was a South African Afrikaner Calvinist Dominee, theologian and the leading Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist. He was known simply as Beyers Naudé, or more colloquially, ...

. Its seat is in

Graaff-Reinet Graaff-Reinet is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is the oldest town in the province. It is also the sixth-oldest town in South Africa, after Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Simon's Town, Paarl and Swellendam. The town was the c ...

Geography and people

The new municipality covers an area of at the western end of the Eastern Cape province, from the

Sneeuberge The Sneeuberge or Sneeuberg mountain range was historically known as “Sneeuwbergen”, meaning ‘snow mountains’ in Cape Dutch, and refers to a significant portion of Southern Africa's Great Escarpment in the Cradock, Murraysburg, Richmon ...

in the north to the

Baviaanskloof Baviaanskloof Mega Reserve is a protected area in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Characteristics The Baviaanskloof - (Dutch for "Valley of Baboons") - lies between the Baviaanskloof and Kouga mountain ranges. The easternmost point of ...

in the south. It is a sparsely populated area, with a population of 79,291 giving a density of only .Sum of the statistics from Census 2011 fo
CamdebooIkwezi
an
Baviaans
80.3% of residents of the municipality speak

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

as their

home language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

, while 14.8% speak

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

and 3.2% speak

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. 66.9% described themselves as "

Coloured Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...

", 23.6% as "

Black African Black is a Racialization, racialized classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have ...

", and 8.7% as "

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

". The principal town in the municipal area is Graaff-Reinet, with a population of approximately 35,000. Other towns include

Willowmore Willowmore is a town in Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The town is situated 140 km north-east of Knysna and 117 km south-west of Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar ...

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

Jansenville Jansenville is a town in Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Town on the Sundays River, 87 km south of Graaff-Reinet. Laid out on the farm Vergenoegd in 1854, it was proclaimed in 1855 and bec ...

, Steytlerville and

Klipplaat Klipplaat is a town in Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The town is some 185 km north-west of Port Elizabeth and 75 km south-east of Aberdeen. It takes its name from large slabs of rock on the ...

Government and politics

The municipal council consists of 24 members elected by

mixed-member proportional representation Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...

. 12 councillors are elected by

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

in 12 wards, while the remaining 12 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 ...

s 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 won a majority of seats on the council. On 23 November 2021, a DA-led coalition took control of the municipality. The following table shows the results of the election.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dr Beyers Naude Local Municipality Local municipalities of the Sarah Baartman District Municipality