The popular mayor of uMngeni Local Municipality, Chris Pappas, is in line to stand as the DA’s candidate for the position of premier of KwaZulu-Natal in the 2024 national government elections.
While he has been lobbied to be the party’s candidate for KZN premiership, it is understood that some want him to challenge for the position of party leader.
One party member told The Mercury that they had approached Pappas to challenge the current leader, Francois Rodgers, in the party’s upcoming congress in April this year.
“He declined; we believe the other faction wants him to stand as premier if he does not contest the provincial leader position,” the member said.
Speaking to The Mercury, Pappas said: “I was approached by some party members to stand as a provincial leader but I have declined that and I will also not be seeking re-election in my current post as the deputy provincial leader.” He said he wanted to focus on his work as mayor.
He said he would avail himself for the position of the KZN premier, which was a long process that the DA would undertake.
“We know that the ANC will be out of power in 2024 and there will be a coalition government in place and the DA will play an important role in that coalition,” he said. His popularity has grown since taking over as mayor of the Midlands municipality.
Pappas has been credited with clearing the municipal debt, improving audit outcomes and improving the traffic department, among other achievements.
He said they had increased the number of people on their indigent list from 123 when it was governed by the ANC, to 3 005. We are a small municipality, but that is a significant achievement as we have increased the number of people who are getting assistance from the municipality.”
Speaking on what he was doing to avoid accusations similar to that of Cape Town of neglecting poorer communities, Pappas said: “The incorrect assumption made about areas like Khayelitsha is that they would be turned into uMhlanga overnight. That will not happen.
“What needs to happen in areas like Mpophomeni (the biggest township in uMngeni) is to improve access to opportunities for people.” On the work done in Mpophomeni, he said the area had faced instability of the electricity supply.
“We are stabilising that. Over the next three years we will invest in infrastructure, including building a new substation. Over the past few months we have made R18 million worth of new electricity connections in the rural areas of Howick and we have drilled boreholes to serve communities without water.
“One of the problems we faced there was that there is no wall-to-wall collection of refuse in the municipality, which has led to problems like dumping, but we will spend millions on three new compactors to ensure that there is collection of refuse in those areas,” he said.
Political analyst Thabani Khumalo said it was not surprising that there were calls for Pappas to assume senior roles.
“He is the most popular leader of the DA in the province right now, and his profile is bigger than that of the current party leader.”
Khumalo said having him as the face of the party in the elections could be positive for a party, which has struggled to make inroads in the voting base of black people.
“If you look at the comments about him, he is being praised even by black communities. It seems he has been able to make noticeable changes within a short space of time in uMngeni. People have even called for him to take over in eThekwini (as mayor).”