Imagination and Identification, Part 1: The Mpumalanga Legislature, Nelspruit

In 1994 the map of South Africa was redrawn as an accompaniment to the country’s first democratic election held in April of the same year.1 The former four provinces – the Cape, Natal, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State – which had been in existence since the time of the Union of South Africa (1910) were reorganised into nine new provincial regions – the Eastern Cape, the Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, the Northern Cape, Limpopo (formerly the Northern Province), the North West Province and the Western Cape – as part of a new system of governance that involves local, provincial and national spheres (see Figure 2.1).