Ward 115 is the battleground for 33 candidates in the municipal elections, on Monday November 1.
The DA won the ward comfortably, with 84.22%, in 2016, followed by the ANC with 7.28% and the EFF with 2.9%. The DA also won all seven voting districts.
This year, the National Freedom Party (NFP) and the Good party, which did not run in 2016, will be trying to make inroads in the ward, which includes Woodstock, parts of Salt River, parts of District Six, Sea Point, Mouille Point, Green Point and parts of Gardens.
NFP ward candidate, Youssef Kanouni, 48, who was born in Casablanca, Morocco, has spent 28 years in the country and been a Woodstock resident for the past 20 years. He has as a clothing store and was part of the Woodstock Community Police Forum (CPF) for six years, the last two years as chairman.
Mr Kanouni believes that his leadership can bring dignity and pride to the community. He says he wants to address crime, problems in health care and education and the inefficient transport system. Promises for more low-cost housing have not been met, and high municipal tariffs for water and electricity are hurting the poor, he says.
Good ward candidate, Joy Davids, 44, from Atlantis, brings nine years experience as a deputy director at the South African Law School. She says she has a close relationship with her ward as her parents were forcefully removed from District Six in the 1970s.
She wants to use existing buildings and vacant land in the inner city, and not sites on the city’s outskirts, to address the need for more housing, she says.
Homelessness should be tackled by restoring homeless people’s dignity and working with non-profit organisation to rehabilitate the homeless and reintegrate them into society, she says.
She wants to unite a diverse ward and celebrate the different cultures, she says.
ANC ward candidate Mogamat Anwar Peters, from Woodstock, brings his experience of previously working in the financial sector as well as working with the Walmer Estate Ratepayers’ Association.
“I want to see a better Ward 115, which works for all its residents across the vast geographical area,” he says.
He wants to use the old Woodstock and Somerset hospitals for affordable housing and says the pace of gentrification must be reviewed. “This systematic removal of the working class out of the centre of Cape Town must be addressed as a human rights issue,” he says.
Poverty can also be fought, he says, by creating more free flea markets around the ward’s key economic areas.
The incumbent ward councillor, Ian McMahon, 53, won a by-election in December last year, after former councillor Dave Bryant stepped down.
Mr McMahon, of Green Point, was chairperson of the De Waterkant Civic Association for six years and has 30 years of private-sector experience.
He says he wants to drive social-housing projects in the Woodstock and Salt River areas and host open days to sign unemployed residents to the City’s Jobs Connect database.
He is committed, he says, to working with every agency to fight against gangsterism and drugs.
Other parties contesting the ward include, the ACDP, Al Jama-ah, Cape Coloured Congress, Cape Muslim Congress, Freedom Front Plus, UDM, The Greens, Patriotic Alliance, Land Party and Dagga Party.