Dada Morero says it is up to his party to nominate the mayoral candidate for the City of Johannesburg.
The mayor of Johannesburg, Dada Morero, says it would not be the end of the world if he is not chosen to become the mayoral candidate for the ANC in Johannesburg.
He was speaking to The Citizen at the party’s 16th regional elective conference in the north of Johannesburg on Wednesday night.
“If one is not nominated, it’s not the end of the world. I was not born a mayor I was just at the right place having led the ANC, I have political credentials and work credentials it is the ANC that said come in,” he said.
Morero’s comments come at a time when his party has not finalised the names of potential candidates for the Johannesburg mayoral candidacy.
How does the ANC appoint its mayors?
The Citizen understands that the regional executive committee will recommend names to the mother body, which will then make a final decision on who becomes the mayoral candidate for the party.
Traditionally, the ANC would nominate the region’s chairperson as its mayoral candidate. However, Morero’s comments come in light of reports that the parties’ mother body could bring in a bigwig from their national structures to run for mayor.
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Contest
Morero will square off against Loyiso Masuku for the position of regional chairperson of the party.
Masuku is the outgoing deputy regional secretary of the region.
300 delegates will vote for their preferred candidate. Whenthe conference started on Wednesday evening, it was still unclear whether both sides had enough numbers to win the conference.
“It’s a contest, so I suppose that every contender supposes that they are winning, so we will see the results when they come in tomorrow,” Morero said.
He refused to predict the outcomes of the vote, saying: “I have done my best, I have done my lobbying, I am ready to go in.”
“Conferences are close in their very nature. People contest and preferences come in. The ANC says you have a three-year mandate, so my mandate has ended effectively tomorrow when we have given our reports,” he said.
WATCH: Delegates at the conference
Renewal
Morero admits that if he wins this conference, he will have the difficult task of uniting the ANC in the region and of rebuilding the party’s lost support.
“The electoral decline is something that we are worried about as the ANC. After our meeting at FNB, there were clear areas we had to work on.
“We adopted six pillars that we have to work on, and this process was preceded by an NEC meeting focused on local government. That NEC also pointed towards key areas that our municipalities must focus on.
“Some of these issues include the maintenance of infrastructure. As you would know, the bulk of our infrastructure in our municipalities has decayed and requires refurbishment, so there should be a focus for every mayor to increase the budget around maintenance,” he said.
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