The Matatiele Local Municipality council consists of fifty-four members elected by mixed-member proportional representation. Twenty-seven councillors are elected by first-past-the-post voting in twenty-seven wards, while the remaining twenty-seven 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 forty seats.
In 2006 and 2011, the largest opposition party was the locally founded African Independent Congress, protesting against the inclusion of Matatiele in the Eastern Cape rather than KwaZulu-Natal.[1]