Outgoing Invercargill mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt gave some sage advice for Gore mayoral hopeful Ben Bell telling him not to "trust anyone".
Sir Tim was beaten in the Invercargill mayoral contest by his current deputy mayor Nobby Clark.
Clark received 6537 votes, well clear of Marcus Lush who got 3785 with Sir Tim in fifth with 847.
Sir Tim has almost continuously been Mayor of Invercargill since the 1993 by-election, apart from losing the 1995 race.
Most of the local elections around the country have been decided but a couple are still undecided with the race to be the mayor of the Gore District coming down to the wire.
Twenty-three-year-old Bell is just in front of incumbent Tracey Hicks, according to Sunday's preliminary results.
The results showed Bell on 2346 votes, just ahead of Hicks on 2333 with just 67 special votes left to be counted.
Sir Tim was Aotearoa's longest-serving mayor and he had some sage advice for Bell - who could become New Zealand's youngest mayor.
Sir Tim appeared alongside Bell on AM on Monday and urged the Gore mayor hopeful to "watch your back and don't trust anyone".
Bell said Sir Tim's guidance is "good advice in any realm".
The long-serving Invcargill mayor said he was "shattered" with the result but wished Clark the best of luck.
"It's like my whole world has come shattering down around me but it's democracy and you've just got to accept it gracefully and wish him [Clark] the best of luck in this new life," Sir Tim told AM co-host Ryan Bridge on Monday.
He hopes his legacy stays intact despite the election result, which also saw him miss out on a council seat.
"I guess my legacy now is what comes into play and looking back over what I've sort of achieved and it's all around me," he told AM.
"There are cheap flights to Auckland, zero fee scheme, making films with Burt Munro, infrastructure, complete state-of-the-art water reticulation plant, so there's a lot that I could look at and feel a great deal of satisfaction."
Watch the full interview with Sir Tim Shadbolt and Ben Bell.
