Johannesburg - The ANC has insisted that it would push ahead for the election of its Johannesburg mayoral candidate Geoff Makhubo despite appeals from the EFF to drop him in exchange for its support.
This comes as the Joburg council was sitting on Thursday to elect a new mayor to take over after Herman Mashaba left the DA-led metro on Wednesday.
The DA had been controlling the municipality through a coalition and with the backing of the EFF since 2016 local government elections where the ANC was dislodged from power.
All the three major political parties, the ANC, DA and EFF, had put forward their respective candidates for the position, with the EFF promising that they would assist either the ANC or the DA to take over Tshwane if they were voted into power in the country economic hub, where they have 30 seats out of the 270.
The ANC and the DA have 122 and 103 seats respectively.
ANC secretary general Ace Magashule insisted that the ANC would not accede to EFF demands for dropping Makhubo, who has been linked to several looting scandals within the metro which took place while the ANC was in charge.
Before the 20116 elections, Makhubo, who is the current regional chairperson of the ANC, was the MMC for finance under the mayor Parks Tau.
Makhubo is also the current ANC caucus leader in council.
The DA has also put forward its caucus leader and current MMC for finance Funzela Ngobeni as mayoral candidate while the EFF is punting its regional chairperson and caucus leader Musa Novela for the top position.
Council speaker Vasco da Gama said if there were three or more candidates, the candidate with the lowest number of votes would be eliminated from the race, which meant that the EFF’s Novela was likely to be removed the contest if councillors towed party line.