Political killings ‘about positions, money’

JOHANNESBURG — Political killings in SA are not about political dominance but about getting to the trough first.

“Some of these guys literally come out of severe poverty and if they get kicked out they will be back there,” said Frans Cronje, deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations. “The stakes are high … it’s about money.”

The number of politicians murdered in the past five years has shot up — especially between 2010 and 2012. KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga seem to be the worst affected, with 41 and five killed, respectively.

Mr Cronje said: “Yes, SA is a democracy … but I can’t think of another country that has this problem … We have been hard pressed to find a single person killed over an idea. It all depends on tenders and corruption,” he said.

African National Congress ( ANC) KwaZulu-Natal secretary Sihle Zikalala said the party had quite a few officials killed in the past two years, but it was difficult to pinpoint motives.

“We have called for serious interventions to crack all these cases. It’s destabilising the party,” he said.

Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) MP Albert Mncwango said political tension in KwaZulu-Natal was because of the IFP breakaway group the National Freedom Party (NFP). Mr Mncwango said quite a number of councillors in his party had been killed in the past five years. “A rough figure, which is subject to verification, is around 10. We believe it was always politically motivated,” he said.

Former IFP chairwoman Zanele Magwaza-Msibi and her backers launched the new opposition to the IFP — the NFP — in January last year. The NFP claims 22 of its members have been murdered since its launch. Many of these murders had been blamed on the IFP.

Mr Mncwango said this was unfortunate. “In all their murders, that they say are politically motivated, I can’t think of any IFP member who has been apprehended,” he said.

NFP general secretary Nhlanhla Khubisa said the party had never blamed other political parties for the spate of murders. “We say it’s politically motivated because it started immediately when the party was formed and, of course, in some cases there was some kind of political intolerance.” Mr Khubisa did, however, say that it was not NFP members killing other NFP members.

Mr Zikalala said the problem surrounding tenders could not be ruled out but that would form part of the ANC’s investigation into the reason for political murders. Sapa