The Constitution says that the council must reflect overall proportionality of all votes cast and this leads to a complicated method of allocating seats. The method for doing this is set out in the Municipal Structures Act:
A quota of votes needed to gain a seat is worked out by adding the total number of votes cast in that election for PR and party ward candidates and then dividing it by the number of seats on the council.
All votes cast for a party on the PR ballot and for that party’s candidates on ward ballots are added together.
Each party’s total is then divided by the quota to see how many seats they are entitled to.
The number of ward seats already won by that party are then subtracted from the total number of seats allocated to the party.
The remainder of seats the party is entitled to are then allocated to the same number of people on the party’s PR list.
Example:
A total of 100 000 votes were cast in Kouga Municipality and there is a 10-person council.
The DA wins 60 000 of the combined PR and ward votes in Kouga. The ANC wins 30 000 and the EFF 8 000.
The quota for each seat is 10 000 votes and therefore the DA is entitled to 6 seats, the ANC to 3 seats and the EFF to 1 seat.
The DA wins 4 out of the 5 wards and therefore already has 4 out of the 6 seats they are entitled to. The EFF wins one ward and is only entitled to one seat.
The DA is given another 2 seats to be filled by people on their PR list. The ANC won no ward seats and therefore gets 3 PR seats. The EFF gets no PR seats.
This is why it is so important for there to be no splitting of the vote if the ANC is to be ousted in Kouga.
It is a two horse race between the DA and the ANC for our Municipality and a vote for a smaller party is literally a wasted vote.
Tags: PR Councillors
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