Party politics are back in Whangarei, with a series of mysterious newspaper ads yielding a 13-strong contingent vying for leadership positions in the upcoming elections.
The 13 candidates running on the Go Whangarei ticket sit with two mayoral candidates under the umbrella of TogetherTahi, Matt Keene and Ash Holwell. One other candidate listed a party affiliation, Robert Carpenter from Tu Kotahi.
The Electoral Commission released its provisional candidate lists for the October elections over the weekend. These lists will be confirmed tomorrow.
All up, Whangarei has six mayoral candidates, five of whom also seek councillor positions. A further 44 are running solely for councillor, including all the district's 13 incumbents. Mayor Sheryl Mai was the sole mayoral candidate not also vying for a ward position.
The last party politics trend in the district was in the 1990s, when the Progress Team led Whangarei District Council for two three-year terms under former Mayor Stan Semenoff.