The magnificent nine … are there more to come for mayoral race?

Sir Tim Shadbolt appears to be unfazed by the large contingent of mayoral candidates now vying for the top job in Invercargill.

On Wednesday, Shadbolt said: “To my mind the growing number of candidates reflects voters dissatisfaction with the politics with the current council.”

To date the new contenders include three former deputy mayors: Toni Biddle, Darren Ludlow and Rebecca Amundsen and current deputy Nobby Clark. Then there’s current city councillor Ian Pottinger, former NZ First MP Ria Bond, Tik-tok star Tom Morton and the field is rounded out by Bluff Community Board member Noel Peterson.

Broadcaster Marcus Lush’s name is often bandied about as another mayoral hopeful. This week he said he was still undecided. August 12 is the nomination cut-off date.

While nine mayoral candidates sounds a lot, it’s not the most that have come forward.

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In the 1993 Invercargill mayoralty by-election 14 ran for the top job. The by-election was held after the death of sitting mayor Eve Poole.

Shadbolt came in with 10,049 votes or 33.32% of the vote, and apart from one term held on to the mayoral chains since.

Bruce Pagan, who had been deputy mayor under Poole, was the second-highest polling candidate in 1993 with 5739 votes.

Asked what he thought of this year’s mayoral candidates, Pagan said: “There’s no candidate everybody can coalesce behind. Nobody who stands out at all, in my view. So it’s quite a mixed bag.

“Personally, I believe it’s in the best interests of the city – and Tim – that the council has new leadership. The city deserves active leadership. It deserves somebody who’s proactive and capable of leading a team.”

Reflecting on the large field of candidates in 1993, Pagan believed having numerous people standing doesn’t in itself “bring anything new to the table” for voters.

Geoff Piercy in that by-election had 1221 votes and went on to serve five terms as a councillor.

Of having such a large field of candidates: “It’s like potpourri. Just mix it up and throw some more in.’’

It was “absolutely stupid” to have had so many candidates for the 1993 by-election, he said.

Bruce Pagan would otherwise have won, Piercy said, and he had not understood why other senior councillors had stood against him.

But for his part, when so many candidates were emerging, he had seen the by-election as a sounding board for how he might go if he stood for the council in the 1995 elections.

“I wasn’t deadly serious about the mayoralty. Tim had emerged from the pack in 1993 because “he was new, and he was out there with his concrete mixer image, and he had a number of people silly enough to back him.’’

Piercy said he looked at the contenders this year and wondered: “Where are the people with stature? People with real business acumen?’’

The only name that leapt out to him so far had been businessman Tom Campbell, who is not running for mayor but for a seat on the council.

Large fields meant the public needed to sift through candidates “promising all sorts of things you could never actually achieve’’ whereas “all I’ve ever said was I’ll do my best’’.

“What they tend to forget, the whole lot of them, is the mayor’s only got one voice, one vote, unless there’s a chance to have a casting vote. Which was seldom used, really.’’

Anne Stoddart, who was a sitting councillor at the time and one of four women to stand for the mayoralty in 1993, said in his time Sir Tim had really done good things for Invercargill but needed to admit he was past it.

In 2020, the Southland Chamber of Commerce was vocal in saying there needed to be an urgent change in elected leadership at the Invercargill City Council.

This was at the time when deputy mayor Toni Biddle announced her resignation citing a toxic environment at the council and the strain of having to do Shadbolt’s job as reasons for her leaving.

Chamber CEO Sheree Carey, on Wednesday, said it was working with the business community to put together a list of key points that they want to see to help improve council leadership.