Chris Pappas, who is fluent in both isiZulu and English, is one of South Africa’s youngest mayors and was the DA’s deputy provincial leader in KwaZulu-Natal before being elected as mayor in uMngeni.
He started his political career as a member and later president of the student representative council at the University of Pretoria where he studied town and regional planning.
This graduate of the DA Young Leaders Programme honed his political skill as an eThekwini councillor; a DA member of the KZN Legislature where he was the DA KZN Spokesperson on Agriculture, later becoming the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) spokesperson; and as the campaign manager in KZN for the 2014 elections.