A local kwaito sensation is hoping his fame in Nyanga will propel him into a council seat left vacant by the recent death of Templeton Mgxekeni.
Tomorrow the DA's Sello Mangwana, 32, wants to wrest Ward 37 from the ANC's control and further entrench the party's majority in the City of Cape Town, where it boasts two-thirds of all councillors.
Mangwana, who grew up in the Zwelitsha section of Nyanga, has been active in his community since the age of 26.
He started off as a youth activist while dabbling in kwaito music.
“I was a youth activist, doing interventions at schools in Nyanga. There was no support for us and that's why I started in politics,” he says.
Mangwana says he is hoping to affect lives positively in Nyanga, which has the unenviable title of “South Africa's Murder Capital”.
His kwaito group The Ruffest, once signed to Soulcandi Records, has taken a back seat while Mangwana works the streets of Nyanga, hoping to reverse the DA's 9% support during last year's local government elections.
“The challenges here are crime, youth unemployment and the lack of opportunities for people to start their own businesses. Young people need to know there are opportunities.
"I know the challenges facing young people and the adults in our community,” says Mangwana.
His opponent tomorrow is the ANC's Luyanda Nyingwa, 36, who has been an activist in the area for over 10 years, having lived in Nyanga’s “Mpinga Square” for most of his life.
“I joined the ANC Youth League, finished high school (in the Eastern Cape) and returned to Cape Town.”
Once back in Cape Town, he joined the ANC and then the SA National Civics Organisation where he was zonal chairperson and also served as an organiser.
Like Mangwana, he says Nyanga’s biggest challenge is crime. “The minister (of police, Fikile Mbalula) has promised us that we'll get a new police station once land has been identified,” says Nyingwa.
The other issue for him is unemployment, saying that he wants to establish a database of the unemployed in the ward, so that jobs from the City can be dished out equitably to everyone instead of the few.