en Setsoto Local Municipality

Setsoto Municipality (Sotho: Masepala wa Setsoto) is a local municipality within the Thabo Mofutsanyane District Municipality, in the Free State province of South Africa. Setsoto is a Sesotho word meaning "beauty". The seat is Ficksburg. Other towns include Senekal, Clocolan and Marquard. The municipality is rich in agriculture and is known for producing cherries.

The first mayor was Ms M.Molete and the current is Ms Seipati Mbiwe.^[3]

Main places

The 2011 census divided the municipality into the following main places:^[4]

Place	Code	Area (km²)	Population	Most spoken language
Clocolan	[1]	15.76	1,349	Afrikaans
Ficksburg	[2]	50.35	5,400	Afrikaans
Hlohlolwane	[3]	3.21	16,253	Sotho
Marquard	[4]	7.30	1,033	Afrikaans
Matwabeng	[5]	3.65	22,076	Sotho
Meqheleng	[6]	4.13	35,848	Sotho
Moemaneng	[7]	1.86	14,469	Sotho
Senekal	[8]	32.88	3,466	Sotho
Setsoto/Willem Pretorius Game Reserve	[9]	130.11	185	Sotho
Remainder of the municipality	[10]	5,712.13	12,519	Sotho

The municipal council consists of thirty-three members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Seventeen councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in seventeen wards, while the remaining sixteen are chosen from party lists so that the total number of party representatives is proportional to the number of votes received. In the election of 1 November 2021 the African National Congress (ANC) won a majority of seventeen seats on the council. The following table shows the results of the election.^[5]


Party		Ward			List			Total seats
Party		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Total seats
	African National Congress	12,405	50.77	14	12,409	51.14	3	17
	Setsoto Service Delivery Forum	5,597	22.91	3	5,542	22.84	5	8
	Economic Freedom Fighters	2,174	8.90	0	2,263	9.33	3	3
	Democratic Alliance	1,687	6.90	0	1,701	7.01	2	2
	Freedom Front Plus	1,253	5.13	0	1,106	4.56	2	2
	African Transformation Movement	320	1.31	0	304	1.25	1	1
	Independent candidates	408	1.67	0				0
	5 other parties	588	2.41	0	938	3.87	0	0
Total		24,432	100.00	17	24,263	100.00	16	33

Valid votes		24,432	97.88		24,263	97.36
Invalid/blank votes		529	2.12		658	2.64
Total votes		24,961	100.00		24,921	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		55,718	44.80		55,718	44.73

^ "Contact list: Executive Mayors". Government Communication & Information System. Archived from the original on 14 July 2010. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Statistics by place". Statistics South Africa. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
^ South African Languages - Place names
^ "Census 2011: Local Municipality: Setsoto".
^ "Election Result Table for LGE2021 — Setsoto". wikitable.frith.dev. Retrieved 2023-10-28.