A REGIONAL OVERVIEW OF
GAUTENG The diamond mine at Cullinan is renowned as a source of large, high-quality gem diamonds, including Type II stones, as well as being the world’s most important source of very rare blue diamonds. Credit: Petra Diamonds
All of Gauteng’s metropolitan municipalities came under coalition governments after the local elections held in 2021. Voters are indicating they are fed up with corruption. It is at municipal level that citizens and businesses feel the effects of inefficiency and corruption and it is that sphere of government that needs the most work in the short term. By John Young
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some of the ideological differences are big – but they have certainly put the ANC on notice that it can’t take things for granted in the run-up to national elections, which are due in 2024. If this strengthens the hand of the group within the ANC that wants to root out corruption, surely a big reason for the party losing support, then the country and the province will benefit. The country’s biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, controls both the biggest metropolitan municipality and the provincial government in the Western Cape but the ANC still has a solid majority in the Gauteng provincial legislature. Various levels of government have departments called “Cooperative Governance”: with different parties in power at municipal and provincial level, that concept will be brought into play and the maturity of the political leaders will be tested.
he municipal elections held in South Africa in 2021 resulted in councillors in 66 municipalities having to form coalitions to create majorities. Among these were Gauteng’s three metropolitan municipalities, Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni. These three cities represent, respectively, the economic centre of the national economy, the seat of the executive government and the manufacturing hub of the country. South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), the party of Nelson Mandela and the struggle for freedom from apartheid, recorded a vastly reduced vote count across the country. In the three Gauteng metros, the opposition Democratic Alliance was able to cobble together coalitions with five other parties to take over the mayoralties. These will not be stable coalitions – GAUTENG BUSINESS 2022
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