[3] Prior to 1994, the area was relatively prosperous with over 250,000 people employed in the textile and furniture industries, mostly at low wages.

[9] In 2018, local residents held a mass protest concerning the failure to provide municipal services.

[14] As a result, Cogta (the Free State Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs) intervened and administration was removed from the mayor and local council and placed directly under Cogta,[15][16] a move welcomed by the South African Municipal Workers' Union.

In the election of 3 August 2016 the African National Congress (ANC) won a majority of forty-seven seats on the council.

Although it still finished with the most seats, a rival grouping led by the MAP16 Civic Movement, founded by a group of ANC councillors who had been expelled for voting to unseat the ANC mayor, who was facing corruption charges, formed a coalition to take control.

The ANC managed to retain five wards, despite strenuous canvassing by the provincial leadership and former premier Ace Magashule.