The Electoral Commission has gazetted the names and the final allocation of seats of the 9 473 councillors who have won seats in the 2021 Municipal Elections which were held on 1 November 2021. The published list excludes the 60% councillor seats in District Councils. These councillors will be elected at the first meeting of local municipal councils.

In terms of electoral prescripts, the Commission is required to declare the results of an election. A full list of the gazetted names can be found on https://bit.ly/3qiAQR7(link is external)

The 213 municipal councils across the country now have 14 days within which to hold first meetings. Municipal managers bear responsibility for convening these first council meetings.

In the first meeting of local councils, the Commission will be conducting elections for the councillors who will be representing those local councils onto District Councils. This segment of the composition of the District Councils constitute 60% per cent of seats. The first meeting of district councils will naturally be preceded by the first meetings of local councils.

Today, the Commission also shares with the public, the final list of the 70 councils where no political party achieved an outright majority. The final includes 5 municipalities where there are two leading parties with the same number of seats. The list can be found at https://bit.ly/3EWu33B(link is external)

The following detailed numbers breaks down the profiling of the elected councillors starting this term of 5 years.

The youngest councilor at the age of 20 was elected in the municipal council of Merafong in Gauteng, whilst the oldest councilor at age 83 was elected in KwaZulu-Natal in the municipality of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

There were 5975 male councillors elected representing 63 per cent and 3498 female councillors elected giving a percentage of 37. Of the total male councillors elected, 2712 came from proportional lists, 3214 from wards and a further 49 were independents contesting wards.  On the other hand, of the total female councillors elected, 2294 were elected from proportional representation lists, 1202 from wards and a further 2 were independents who contested wards.

Of the 325 political parties which contested the elections, 167 managed to secure a seat in a council. 51 independent candidates managed to win wards in the various councils across the country.

There are 3841councillors who are returning to councils and 5632 new councillors. Regrettably, one elected PR councillor in the Emalahleni municipality in Mpumalanga is now deceased. This elected councillor will be replaced in terms of prescribed PR replacement procedures.

The Commission wishes the elected public representatives well.

For media queries: Please contact Kate Bapela on 082 600 6386

For media interviews: Please email requests to spokesperson@elections.org.za(link sends e-mail)

To check the status of your special votes please log on to www.elections.org(link is external). or send a text message to: 32711

To check that you’re registered for the elections, please log on to www.elections.org.za(link is external) or send a text message to: 32810

For information on elections, please send the text message “Hi” to: 0600 88 0000

Source: Government of South Africa