BLOEMFONTEIN, Sunday 20 September 2026 — Mangaung executive mayor Gregory Nthlatsi is set to leave the metropolitan council after the 4 November local government elections because he was among senior ANC office-bearers relying on the party’s proportional-representation list that was not validly submitted to the Electoral Commission.
Election analyst Wayne Sussman said on Sunday that Nthlatsi does not appear among the ANC’s certified Mangaung ward candidates and had been on the failed PR list, meaning there is no current route for him to return as a councillor after the election.
The development gives the ANC’s candidate-submission failure a direct leadership consequence in one of South Africa’s eight metros: its incumbent mayor cannot return to council on the certified candidate slate as it presently stands.
The ANC is still pursuing legal options over the exclusion of 181 candidates nationally, meaning the position could change only if further litigation or another lawful electoral process alters the certified lists.
Mayor absent from certified candidates
Nthlatsi remains Mangaung’s executive mayor for the remainder of the current council term.
Official government records identify him as executive mayor, while the municipality’s own documentation records him in that position.
His difficulty concerns the next council.
The ANC failed to complete its Mangaung PR candidate submission by the Electoral Commission’s deadline.
Unlike in municipalities where individual ward candidates were also excluded, ANC ward candidates remain able to contest Mangaung.
But politicians who relied exclusively on the party’s PR list have no place on the certified ballot.
Sussman said Nthlatsi is one of them.
Most of mayoral committee also affected
The consequences extend beyond the mayor.
An analysis of the certified candidates indicates that most members of Mangaung’s current mayoral committee are also absent from the ANC’s surviving ward slate.
Sussman said Community Services MMC Alfred Qai, who is contesting Ward 3, appears to be the only current ANC mayoral committee member positioned to return through a ward candidacy.
Mangaung’s current executive includes Nthlatsi, Deputy Mayor Lulama Titi-Odili and MMCs responsible for finance, planning, corporate services, waste, engineering and other portfolios.
Their absence from the certified PR list does not remove them from their current offices before the election.
It does, however, mean they cannot enter the next council through that list unless the ANC succeeds in changing the present legal position.
Council membership is prerequisite for mayoralty
The distinction matters because South Africans do not directly elect metropolitan mayors.
Voters elect ward councillors and parties receive additional council seats through proportional representation.
Once the new council is constituted, councillors elect the executive mayor from among themselves.
A politician who does not become a councillor therefore cannot be elected mayor.
That means Nthlatsi’s exclusion is not merely a lower position on an ANC candidate slate. Under the certified lists as they stand, his current mayoral tenure must end when the present council’s term concludes.
Electoral Court rejected ANC bid
The Electoral Commission of South Africa rejected late completion of the ANC candidate submissions, and the Electoral Court this week dismissed the party’s attempt to have the 181 affected candidates reinstated.
The ANC argued that candidate information had been captured on the IEC’s online nomination system before the deadline and that the candidates should therefore be accepted despite the party not completing the final submission process.
The Commission opposed that interpretation.
The ANC has said it will exercise its remaining legal rights following the court defeat.
Until such a challenge succeeds, the certified lists govern who may contest on 4 November.
Failure could cost ANC around 100 council seats nationally
Sussman estimates that the ANC would probably have won roughly 100 to 110 of the 181 affected positions, rather than all 181.
He described the loss as a significant electoral setback, particularly in the Eastern Cape and Mangaung.
The calculation is an analyst’s estimate rather than an IEC projection or guaranteed election outcome.
Its significance lies in demonstrating that the list failure affects seats the ANC would realistically have expected to win, rather than merely nominal candidacies in unwinnable contests.
Mangaung is especially important because it is a metropolitan municipality where the ANC entered the current term with an outright majority.
ANC won narrow majority in 2021
The ANC won 51 seats in Mangaung in the 2021 local government elections.
The DA secured 26, the EFF 12, the Freedom Front Plus five, while smaller parties divided the remaining seats.
That gave the ANC only a narrow majority.
The party’s inability to contest the PR ballot in 2026 therefore fundamentally changes the electoral arithmetic.
PR seats ordinarily correct the relationship between ward results and each party’s overall share of the municipal vote.
Without an ANC PR list, the party can return councillors only by winning wards.
It cannot receive the compensatory PR seats that would normally increase its representation to reflect its total support.
Mangaung already politically competitive
The metro was already expected to be significantly more competitive than in 2021.
Recent polling cited during the campaign has suggested that neither the ANC nor DA is assured of an outright majority.
The DA has selected Werner Pretorius as its mayoral candidate, while the EFF, MK Party, Freedom Front Plus, Patriotic Alliance and other parties are also competing for representation.
The ANC’s submission failure now gives those parties an additional opportunity.
Even if the ANC remains the largest party by ward victories, its inability to collect PR seats could leave opposition parties collectively controlling a much larger share of the next council.
Nthlatsi had been governing during national intervention
Nthlatsi became executive mayor during a particularly difficult period for Mangaung.
The municipality has been under national intervention under section 139 of the Constitution since 2022 following persistent financial, administrative and service-delivery failures.
Municipal financial documents identify restoring financial health, governance and service delivery as core priorities of the administration.
The election was therefore already set to function as a judgement on both the ANC’s stewardship of Mangaung and the progress made under intervention.
The candidate-list failure adds a separate organisational problem.
Voters will not simply decide whether to retain the current administration. Much of that administration is presently unable to return through the ANC’s intended PR slate.
ANC may need entirely new municipal executive
If the certified lists remain unchanged and the ANC is able to participate in a post-election government, it would need to construct much of its municipal leadership from the ward councillors who actually win seats.
That could include choosing a new mayor even if the party remains the largest formation in council.
Alfred Qai is among the current executive members who retains a route back through a ward contest, but winning a ward does not automatically make him or any other councillor the ANC’s next mayoral candidate.
The party would still have to determine its preferred leadership and then secure sufficient council votes to elect that person.
If opposition parties collectively command a majority, the ANC may instead lose the mayoralty altogether.
Candidate failure becomes leadership crisis
Until now, much of the national debate over the ANC’s 181 excluded candidates has focused on the number of candidates and the legal dispute with the IEC.
Nthlatsi’s position shows what those numbers mean politically.
One of South Africa’s eight sitting metropolitan mayors is currently unable to contest for a seat in the council that will replace his own administration.
Most of his mayoral committee appears to face the same problem.
That makes Mangaung one of the clearest examples of how an administrative candidate-submission failure can alter the political leadership of a municipality before a single vote is cast.
The ANC’s remaining legal efforts could still change that position.
If they do not, Mangaung will have a new executive mayor after the 4 November election — regardless of whether the ANC remains part of the government that chooses that person.
