When political parties draw up candidate lists in an election year, contestation and tension are normal features but death should never be. It is deplorable that it has sort of become normal that as politicians jostle for positions, blood is spilt.
Early this week, the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal had to call for a stronger police presence in hotspot areas after three women were gunned down after a branch meeting in Inanda, Durban. Occupants of a car drove by and opened fire on the three, killing them as they stood at the gate of a school, Five other people were injured.
Incidents of political violence are not a new occurence in SA. However, the killings in the early 1990s were between rival parties whereas in recent years we have seen mainly members of the same party killing one another, driven by greed and a hunger for positions.
We have seen many local politicians being assassinated in election years and that is a concern as democratic processes should be allowed to lead the way.
According to a study conducted by the Global Initiative against Transnational Crime and the Centre of Criminology at the University of Cape Town released in 2018, 90 politicians were killed in 2016, the last year we held local government elections.
The same report revealed that there were 291 political killings reported in the country from 2000 to 2017, with most of those in KwaZulu-Natal.
The figures are shocking. What type of a society have we become? Why is a political office worth a life? We agree with KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala when he said no election or vote is worth the blood of “innocent people”.
“The killings bear the hallmarks of a desperate effort to use intimidation and violence as a way of frustrating the will of the people and subverting our democracy,” he added.
The killings are now predictable, as the data shows over the years, so police intelligence should be able to identify hotspots before there are more attacks.
Police must find and arrest the Inanda killers and all involved, and tighten security in volatile areas to stop more deaths in the coming weeks before the polls. We cannot afford to lose more lives in this manner as that threatens the stability of our communities.
We also call on communities to work with law enforcement agencies by giving information that will ensure the perpetrators are apprehended.
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