Pretoria - After lengthy deliberations regarding mayoral candidates on Saturday, lasting well into the night, the African National Congress national executive committee (NEC) could not decide on the party’s mayoral candidate for the City of Tshwane for the August 3 municipal elections.
“In Nelson Mandela [Bay] Danny Jordaan is going to be the mayor. In Ekurhuleni our mayoral candidate is Mzwandile Masina. In Johannesburg comrade Parks Tau is the mayoral candidate. We have not finalised the process in Tshwane,” Mantashe told reporters at the St George Hotel in Pretoria shortly before midnight.
“Let me explain what happened in Tshwane. The region submitted names and the province was not convinced about those names but they 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 mayoral candidate would be announced after that process.
The Tshwane region had put forward three names 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 local government elections.
– African News Agency