Karoo Hoogland is an administrative area in the
Namakwa District of
Northern Cape in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
.
Hoogland an Afrikaans word meaning "highland" and Karoo is a Khoi word meaning "hard" or "dry". The name reflects the area which has dry, arid and desert-like conditions.
The municipality incorporates the towns of
Williston,
Fraserburg
Fraserburg is a town in the Karoo region of South Africa's Northern Cape province. It is located in the Karoo Hoogland Local Municipality. The town has some of the coldest winters in South Africa.
The nearest towns are Williston, Sutherland, Lo ...
and
Sutherland. Although the towns are separated by more than 100 km by road, they share many administrative tasks.
Karoo Hoogland elected the first (and so far only) mayor from
COPE
The cope (known in Latin as ''pluviale'' 'rain coat' or ''cappa'' 'cape') is a liturgical vestment, more precisely a long mantle or cloak, open in front and fastened at the breast with a band or clasp. It may be of any liturgical colour.
A c ...
, Jan Julies, in 2011, as 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:
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 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 thei ...
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.
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
{{Municipalities of the Northern Cape
Local municipalities of the Namakwa District Municipality