The list of candidates to succeed outgoing Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa is a "badly kept secret", the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday.

Newspaper reports named the nominees as education MEC Angie Motshekga, finance MEC Paul Mashatile and housing MEC Nomvula Mokonyane.

DA Gauteng leader Jack Bloom said Motshekga was "the least worst candidate" of the three.

He described the nominations that were made on Wednesday by the provincial executive committee of the African National Congress as "predictable and uninspiring".

ANC spokesperson Nkenke Kekana said the list was confidential, declining to confirm the names.

But Bloom said: "The list of nominees is a badly kept secret", adding that the three candidates were "all Zuma cronies without Shilowa's admirable principles and independence of mind".

The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Thursday Mashatile would be its preferred candidate.

Cosatu said there was a need to "maintain the unity and cohesion of the ANC in the province" and the alliance; and to "focus the ANC on the fight for jobs and the eradication of poverty and inequality".

Mashatile would be the right man for the job, Cosatu concluded.

"It was decided to support the deployment of comrade Paul Mashatile, the ANC Gauteng provincial chairperson, to the post of Gauteng provincial premier," it said in a statement.

The national leadership of the ANC would choose the new premier from the nominated candidates, by Friday at the earliest, said Kekana.

Shilowa announced his resignation on Monday, saying it was out of loyalty to ousted president Thabo Mbeki, who was removed from office by the ANC's national executive committee.

Sapa