The increase in the number of political killings in Estcourt, in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, has seen scores of fearful councillors flooding the administration with requests for bodyguards. Picture: Keran Ducasse/African News Agency (ANA)
Durban – A new report by Global Initiative has revealed that political killings in the country have increased since 2020 and KwaZulu-Natal is still the epicentre of the scourge.
An April 2023 report of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) said politically-influenced hits are driven by several factors.
The report was compiled by Rumbi Matamba, an analyst at the GI-TOC, working as part of the Observatory of Illicit Economies in East and Southern Africa.
The report looks at business of transactional killings in South Africa, however, its major focus was on the taxi industry and the political space.
It said politically-motivated hits went up from 24 in 2020 to 30 cases in 2021 and 40 in 2022, the second-highest number of incidents ever recorded in the database – the highest being in 2019, with 42 cases.
Of all the provinces, KZN had the highest number of recorded cases for 2022 with 21, which is more than half the country’s total number.
Meanwhile, cases in the Eastern Cape in 2022 were the second highest in the database, with 10 recorded in that province.
It said this marks a worrying trend because this is the highest number of political hits recorded for the Eastern Cape.
“The contested and often violent nature of the political economy in KZN is well documented.
“Politically-motivated killings have – over the period covered by the database – been heavily concentrated in the province, and it is notorious for supplying hitmen to various other provinces and sometimes other countries.
“Violence, including assassinations, is more prevalent in specific parts of the province, such as the KZN Midlands and the eThekwini metro.
"In the case of the latter, no political party has commanded an outright majority in the municipality since the 2021 local government elections.
“Violence is sometimes a function of decision-making in the council hanging in the balance between the various ideologically opposed political parties elected to the council,” the report said.
The report noted that recorded political hits in 2021 were also higher in other provinces than the previous local government election year (2016). It said this illustrated how political violence involving ANC contestation among political aspirants and candidates has spread across the country, with less concentration in KZN than in previous years.
“The waning power of the ANC, partly due to voter apathy and a declining majority in the latest general elections, suggests that ANC candidates are fighting for political positions internally across the different provinces.
“South Africa’s 2021 local government elections were marred by political violence, assassinations and instability, as previous analysis had forecasted.
“In the Eastern Cape a 50% decline in reported cases was recorded in 2021, with four cases, but in Gauteng, the number of incidents increased from two cases in 2020 to six in the 2021 database and 10 in 2022."
Matamba said cases involving other parties are few when compared with the ANC.
“Incidents involving members of other parties such as the DA and the IFP are few compared to those involving the ANC.
“An average of two cases per year between 2015 and 2020 was recorded for hits on IFP members, and one case per year targeting DA members.
“This form of violence therefore would appear to predominantly involve ANC members, and can be described almost entirely as an intra-party problem.
“Given the high stakes involved in politics, including substantial flows of money and influence, there is a strong likelihood that this kind of violence will continue to increase.
“This may also be compounded by the evident trend of declining electoral fortunes and the ANC’s dwindling majority.”
The report noted that the fight for power and resources in the local government sphere is still the main driving force behind these killings.
“Political killings often target individuals holding political or administrative positions, mostly in the local municipal landscape, such as local councillors.
“The decentralised procurement system in the South African government empowers accounting officers (for example directors-general, provincial heads of department, municipal managers and chief executives of municipal entities) to manage their own tendering processes and resource allocation.
“Therefore, municipal positions are coveted because they provide access to municipal finances, which, as has been shown in the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture report, has in some cases been diverted fraudulently by unscrupulous individuals for personal benefit.
“Targeted political killings have also included candidates for local municipal councillor positions, political activists and whistle-blowers speaking out against corruption or threatening to do so.
“For example, in 2021, Babita Deokaran was assassinated after she lifted the lid on rampant corruption within the Gauteng provincial government’s health department involving the fraudulent procurement of Covid-19 personal protective equipment.
“The targeting of members of civil society illustrates how space for civil society has significantly declined on the continent since the pandemic.”
sihle.mavuso@inl.co.za
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