The African National Congress late on Saturday night announced its mayoral candidates for metropolitan and “strategic” municipalities for the August 3 local government elections.
“The ANC is pleased to present the following comrades as candidates of our people for mayors in the 2016 local government elections," ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe told reporters in Pretoria shortly before midnight.
"The NEC [national executive committee] does so cognisant of the fact that no single individual working alone can deliver on our people’s aspirations. It is the leadership collectives of the organisation and government working together with our communities that will advance people’s power in every community,” Mantashe said.
The ANC mayoral candidates for the metropolitan municipalities are:
– Mangaung: Olly Mlamleli;
– Buffalo City: Xola Pakati;
– Nelson Mandela Bay: Danny Jordaan;
– City of Cape Town: Xolani Sotashe;
– City of Ekurhuleni: Mzwandile Masina;
– City of Johannesburg: Parks Tau; and
– eThekwini: Zandile Gumede.
Mantashe said the Tshwane mayoral candidate had not yet been decided.
“The regional executive committee submitted three names to the provincial executive committee [PEC]. The PEC was not convinced with the names submitted. Consequently a delegation of the NEC will be leading further discussion with structures in Tshwane,” said Mantashe.
"Let me explain what happened in Tshwane. The region submitted names and the province was not convinced about those names but they brought those names to the NEC. The NEC has a proposal of what should be done in Tshwane. But before we announce that proposal we have mandated a delegation of the NEC to go to Tshwane tomorrow [Sunday] to meet the branches of the ANC.”
He said the Tshwane mayoral candidate would be announced after that process. The Tshwane region had initially put three names forward but Mantashe said the third had been removed.
"We are left with two names. I don’t want to venture into who those [remaining] two people are until a decision is taken. Branches are going to be engaged… so that everybody must support the name that is put forward," said Mantashe.
The ANC in Tshwane is divided between incumbent Tshwane mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa, also ANC regional chairperson in Tshwane, and his ANC Tshwane deputy chairperson Mapiti Matsena.
The opposition Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate Solly Msimanga and the Economic Freedom Fighters have been on extensive campaigns across Tshwane, hoping to snatch the capital city from the ANC in the tightly-contested August 3 elections.
Mantashe said the ANC was convinced that the list of mayoral candidates presented consisted of “some of the best comrades among our ranks to advance our programme of radical socio-economic transformation”. He called on ANC supporters to support the mayoral candidates.
“The ANC has been on the ground interacting with our people across the length and breadth of our country. We have no doubt that South Africans, in their overwhelming majority, will renew the mandate of the ANC to build on the solid foundation over the last 15 years of democratic local governance,” he said.
