Tlokwe Local Municipality (before February 2007, Potchefstroom Local Municipality) was a local municipality in

Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality (formerly Southern District Municipality) is one of the 4 districts of North West province of South Africa. The seat of Kaunda District is Klerksdorp. A plurality of its 742 821 people speak Setswana (2016 C ...

North West Province North West is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Mahikeng. The province is located to the west of the major population centre of Gauteng and south of Botswana. History North West was incorporated after the end of Apartheid in 1994, an ...

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 seat was

Potchefstroom Potchefstroom (, colloquially known as Potch) is an academic city in the North West Province of South Africa. It hosts the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University. Potchefstroom is on the Mooi Rivier (Afrikaans for "pretty river" ...

. After the

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 it was merged into the larger

JB Marks Local Municipality JB Marks Local Municipality is a local municipality of South Africa. It was established after the August 2016 local elections by the merging of Tlokwe Local Municipality (which included Potchefstroom) and Ventersdorp Local Municipality. The mu ...

. The most widely accepted theory on the origin of the name Potchefstroom is that the name is composed of three words: Potgieter, chef and stroom. The first syllable is that of Potgieter, the second from the fact that he was a "chef" or a leader of the emigrants, and the third signifying the Mooi River. The complete name "Potgieter" was gradually shortened to "Pot".

In The News

In February 2013, then mayor of Tlokwe, prof. Annette Combrink declared that she would refuse to use the new official vehicle that was delivered to her. It was a customized Mercedes-Benz C350 CDI, worth R736,000.-, that the ANC ruled council had ordered in July 2012 for the previous mayor Maphetle Maphetle. Combrink represents the opposition Democratic Alliance but was elected mayor due to disagreements in the ANC led council. She declared to be quite happy to use her nine-year-old Volkswagen Passat instead, in view of the poverty in the municipality. The ANC declared that they plan to unseat the mayor as soon as possible.

Main places

The 2001 census divided the municipality into the following main places:

Rivers

* Ensel Spruit * Kromdraai Spruit * Loop Spruit * Mooi River * Rooikraal Spruit *

Vaal River The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Ocean. ...

Dams

* Boskop Dam * Klipdrift Dam * Modder Dam * Poortjies Dam * Potchefstroom Dam

Politics

The municipal council consisted of fifty-two 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 ...

. Twenty-six councillors were 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 twenty-six wards, while the remaining twenty-six were 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 was proportional to the number of votes received. In the election of 18 May 2011 the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...

(ANC) won a majority of thirty seats in the council. The following table shows the results of the election.

References

External links

Official website
{{Municipalities of the North West Local municipalities of the Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality