Local municipality (South Africa)

In South Africa, a local municipality (Tswana: mmasepalaselegae; Sotho: masepala wa lehae; Northern Sotho: mmasepala wa selegae; Afrikaans: plaaslike munisipaliteit; Zulu: umasipala wendawo; Southern Ndebele: umasipaladi wendawo; Xhosa: umasipala wengingqi; Swazi: masipaladi wasekhaya; Venda: masipalawapo; Tsonga: masipala wa muganga) or Category B municipality is a type of municipality that serves as the third, and most local, tier of local government. Each district municipality is divided into a number of local municipalities, and responsibility for municipal affairs is divided between the district and local municipalities. There are 226 local municipalities in South Africa.

A local municipality may include rural areas as well as one or more towns or small cities. In larger urban areas there are no district or local municipalities, and a metropolitan municipality is responsible for all municipal affairs.

A local municipality is governed by a municipal council elected by voters resident in the municipality on the basis of mixed-member proportional representation. The municipal area is divided into wards, the number of which depends on the population of the municipality. At local elections the voters have three ballot papers: one to vote for a candidate for ward councillor, one to vote for a party for the council of the local municipality, and one to vote for a party for the council of the district municipality. The ward councillors are directly elected by first-past-the-post voting. An equal number of PR (proportional representation) councillors are chosen from party lists in such a way that the total representation of each party on the council (including ward councillors) is proportional to the share of the vote that that party received.

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