Political killers must be brought to book

Political violence, including assassinations, is a highly disturbing thread that runs through public life in SA. Whistleblowers, councillors, candidates, rivals for tenders and even local activists all risk becoming targets. Similar motives inform all such killings greed and corruption, often fanned by internal party factionalism. This, too, underlies the ANC-related violence that has become a norm in parts of SA ahead of local government polls, with would-be candidates eying not just councillor salaries, but the chance to hand out tenders and other illicit perks of the job.

KwaZulu-Natal is the province that came closest to outright civil war in the 1980s and ‘90s and it is where the majority of political violence occurs in SA, especially around election time.

In recent years, this violence mostly occurs within the ranks of the ANC.

With local government polls looming, violence has again erupted. Last weekend, in a horrifying attack, three women were shot dead and several other people injured while they were queuing to vote for an ANC council candidate at an Inanda primary school in eThekwini’s Ward 54. This followed the fatal shooting of an ANC activist on the south coast.

There were reports of physical coercion during the selection of ANC candidates in Pietermaritzburg and of high-calibre rifles being brandished at branch meetings in eThekwini.

Police minister Bheki Cele rushed to the scene of the Inanda killings this week but few place much store in the minister’s vow to track down the killers.

After all, hitmen from the Glebelands hostel have been linked to more than 150 slayings in the province and elsewhere in the country without authorities acting.

Five years ago, the Moerane Commission of Inquiry was established to probe political killings in the province since 2011. This commission heard of a “culture of bloodletting” for political office. The commission’s report was duly tabled but mighty little came of it.

The killers seem virtually assured of impunity, with few arrests and even fewer convictions for political killings in the province which is described as being awash with guns and where the police force is highly politicised with officers linked to ANC factions.

Violence such as what occurred at Inanda is an attack on our constitutional democracy.

It happens because the ANC has failed to stamp out the rot in its ranks and flourishes because the killers and those who hire them are not brought to book. It is high time this ends.