Political parties in the City of Johannesburg were locked in last-minute horse trading meetings yesterday ahead of today’s crucial vote for the new mayor during a special council seating.

Lobbying involved all the parties across the political divide seeking to take power in the embattled metro.

Al Jama-ah has confirmed that its little-known councillor, Kabelo Gwamanda, has been approached by other parties including the ANC to stand as the mayoral candidate to replace fellow party member Thapelo Amad who resigned last week.

Party leader Ganief Hendricks told Sowetan that councillors from its coalition partners in the city persuaded Gwamanda to contest for the mayoral chain .

“He [Gwamanda] has been approached to stand by other councillors and their leadership. It’s not only the ANC [that’s approached him] but parties across the board,” said Hendricks.

“We don’t have a quarrel [about this approach] because I’m committed to the ANC as when they approach us to govern anywhere in the country, whether it’s a small or big municipality, even a province. We’re there to assist because in terms of our faith [Islam] when you’re requested to govern you must agree.”

Sowetan reported two weeks ago that the ANC in the city was likely to field Gwamanda as the next mayor.

Gwamanda is expected to go up against the DA’s Dr Mpho Phalatse for the mayoral chain. Another name that was bandied about was ActionSA’s Gauteng leader Funzi Ngobeni.

However, ActionSA said it would not vote for Phalatse, adding that the party had capable candidates to take over the position.

“ActionSA and other parties won’t support Mpho Phalatse’s candidature because she doesn’t have a majority of support. If we allow ourselves to support a candidate that can’t win a majority, then we are bringing back the ANC and EFF to run the City of Joburg,” said ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont.

Beaumont and Ngobeni spent Monday in discussions with representatives from IFP, ACDP, FF+ and UIM on the city’s mayoral candidate. ActionSA, DA , IFP, ACDP, FF+ and UIM have a total of 133 seats in the Joburg metro.

Asked if ActionSA would field Ngobeni, Beaumont said: “I accept Funzi being an excellent candidate but if you don’t mind, we would take the approach of consulting our coalition partners before making any statement in that regard. Otherwise we’d be no better than the DA [who announced a candidate without consulting its coalition partners],” he said.

The ANC-aligned coalition partners include the EFF, PA, AIC, UDM, PAC and APC, who have a combined 137 seats.

The chairperson of the minority parties in the ANC coalition, Margaret Arnolds, said the parties would meet this morning to finalise the name of their candidate.

“As the minority we have not spoken or fielded our candidates as yet. We don’t even know which candidate the ANC wants to field as mayor,” she said.

The ATM’s Lubabalo Magwentshu said they were still waiting for the ANC to propose the name of a mayoral candidate.

“In our discussions as the political management committee, which is a collective that is supposed to take the final decision [on the mayoral candidate], we’ve not discussed the names but we’ll have a name by [Tuesday] the morning,” said Magwentshu.