City of Yarra mayor: Greens councillor set to be re-elected as mayor following voting deadlock

The Greens-dominated City of Yarra has so far been unable to decide who will be its next mayor.

The controversy-plagued City of Yarra council is set to elect a Greens mayor, despite week long voting deadlock on who will lead the council.

The Greens won five of the nine seats on council at the 2020 local government elections, but their fifth councillor, Anab Mohamud, stood down in July this year after she was charged over an alleged drunken street brawl outside a gay nightclub in South Yarra.

She has indicated she will fight the charges.

Ms Mohamud’s absence left the Greens with just four councillors, and meant they didn’t have the numbers to re-elect local artist Gabrielle de Vietri as mayor last week.

A series of votes had seen the council split 4-4, with the Greens backing Ms de Vietri and all other councillors backing other politically independent councillors to be mayor.

On Friday, independent councillor Herschel Landes said he would move to break the deadlock at the council’s next meeting on Tuesday.

The Greens have been unable to re-elect Gabrielle de Vietri as mayor because controversial councillor Anab Mohamud is on leave.

Mr Landes was due to be on leave on Tuesday, on a fishing holiday, but said he will attend the meeting remotely, and will support the candidate who has the most votes among the other seven councillors.

He told Leader newspapers his stance means he would likely end up backing a Greens candidate for mayor.

Mr Landes said it was “disappointing” to have to back a party-political mayoral candidate, but that the council had a backlog of important local issues to focus on.

Mr Landes said ongoing instability was “not helpful” and that councillors needed to focus on their “common purpose” of serving ratepayers and helping local businesses recover from the pandemic.

The council is also recruiting a new chief executive.

Residents from the City of Yarra have been fuming about the council’s changes to bun collections. Supplied: Facebook,

The Greens’ difficulties in re-electing Ms de Vietri as mayor marks the latest development in a chaotic period, which has included legal action by the local government watchdog against Ms Mohamud, a “cash grab” on struggling local businesses, and controversy surrounding rubbish collection.

Ms de Vietri last week tried to delay Tuesday’s vote until the following Monday, despite saying “there is some sense of urgency to get this done”.