Edinburgh council elections 2022: ward-by-ward analysis: City Centre

Ward 11: City Centre

Thirteen candidates are standing in City Centre ward. Picture: Ian Georgeson.

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There are more candidates for voters to choose from in this four-member ward than anywhere else in the Capital. The SNP is putting up two candidates – the first time it has done so here – while the other main parties have one each. Alba is also standing and there are six independents.

Tory Joanna Mowat topped the poll last time and the time before and is standing again.

The SNP's Alasdair Rankin, first elected at a by-election in 2011, is not seeking re-election after having to give up his role as finance convener in 2020 for health reasons. The party's two candidates are events organiser and community activist Marianne Mwiki and Finlay McFarlane, an award-winning campaigner for support services for male survivors of sexual assault.

Standing again for the Greens is councillor Claire Miller, who came third last time but with enough first preferences to be elected in the first round of counting.

Labour failed to win a seat here in 2007 and was last to take a seat in both 2012 and 2017. Sitting councillor Karen Doran is standing down and is replaced as candidate by Margaret Graham, a childcare manager who stood for the party in Edinburgh Western at last year's Holyrood elections.

The Lib Dems, who had a councillor here from 2007 until 2012, are fielding accountant Andy Foxall. And Alba's candidate is lighting designer and former SNP activist Kevan Shaw.

The independents include artist and film-maker Bonnie Prince Bob who says the city is run by "self-serving careerists who have contempt towards working class communities".

The ward stretches from Donaldson's School to Holyrood and from the Meadows to Bellevue.

2017: Conservatives 32.7 per cent; SNP 25.1 per cent; Greens 20.5 per cent; Labour 13.2 per cent; Lib Dems 8 per cent.

Current councillors: Joanna Mowat (Con), Alasdair Rankin (SNP), Claire Miller (Green), Karen Doran (Lab).

Electorate 23,183

Candidates

BOB, Bonnie Prince – Independent

CARSON, Pete – Independent

FOXALL, Andy – Scottish Liberal Democrats

GRAHAM, Margaret Arma – Labour and Co-operative Party

ILLINGWORTH, Kevin – Independent

MCFARLANE, Finlay – Scottish National Party (SNP)

MILLER, Claire – Scottish Green Party

MOWAT, Jo – Scottish Conservative and Unionist

MWIKI, Marianne – Scottish National Party (SNP)

PAKPAHAN-CAMPBELL, Maria – Independent

PENMAN, Paul R. – Independent

ROWAN, Norrie – Independent

SHAW, Kevan – Alba Party for independence