Johannesburg – The ANC will retain Xola Pakati as the mayor of Buffalo City Metro.
BCM will have its first council meeting Tuesday and Pakati is set to be re-elected as the mayor after the ANC retained its majority in the council by 61%.
Pakati found himself in the cold with an uncertain future after this year’s local government elections despite Buffalo City being one of the two metros that the ANC won outright.
There were other candidates such as the ANC MP Princess Faku and the BCM Speaker from the middle of last year, Humphrey Maxhegwana.
Faku was the frontrunner after topping the party’s regional PR list.
It was also reported that she resigned as the MP last week and that fuelled more speculations that were preparing to take the reigns as the mayor. But there were also claims that she didn’t have proper qualifications as per ANC requisite.
On the other hand, Maxhegwana who was also an MP before being sworn as the BCM councillor last year and took over the reins as the Speaker following the death of the former BCM Speaker Alfred Mtsi was seen as the unifying candidate who does not belong to BCM party regional factions.
Meanwhile, the party has announced Eugene Johnson to be its Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral candidate.
Johnson was a Nelson Mandela Bay councillor from 2005 to 2010. She holds a certificate in local governance, law and public administration from the University of Fort Hare and she completed matric at the age of 60 last year.
Johnson will go against the DA mayoral candidate Nqaba Bhanga during the council seating on Monday morning.
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