In Metropolitan Municipalities, Council is made up of two types of councillors. Half are Ward Councillors and half are Proportional Representation Councillors (also known as PR Councillors).

Ward Councillors

Ward Councillors are elected by the residents living in ward on a first-past-the-post basis. This means that the Councillor with the most votes wins the seat. You don’t need to belong to a political party to run to be the Ward Councillor. Anybody can register and appear on the ballot as an Independent. 

PR Councillors

PR Councillors are elected by everyone living in the municipality on a proportional basis. This means that the seats are allocated to political parties based on what proportion of the vote they received. Only political parties can contest and win PR Councillor seats.
The PR seats themselves are not allocated proportionally. Rather the Independent Electoral Commission or IEC allocates seats using a formula to ensure that Council overall is proportional to the number of votes that a party receives. Parties submit a list to the IEC and they fill the seats from the list based on the number of seats that they win.