Bright Ntuli
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime says political killings pose a serious threat to the integrity and stability of the electoral process ahead of next Wednesday’s local government elections.
A total of 45 political attacks were recorded between 1 January and September 30 this year, in which at least 43 people were killed.
This month alone, nine politically linked killings were recorded. KwaZulu-Natal remains the province most severely affected by political violence.
The GI-TOS’s Julian Rademeyer told the National Broadcaster that this violence also points to a criminalisation of politics.
He also identified a change in the trend of political parties involved in these killings. He stressed the killings have gone from affecting a single political party to spilling over other parties.
“The days where we saw intra-party violence between political parties, those incidents still occur but they are quite rare. But what is quite chilling is that in 2022 for instance, much of that was clustered within the African National Congress, this is now spreading.”
“So we are seeing far more candidates from other political parties, the DA, BOSA, EFF and SACP being assassinated,” said Rademeyer.
Click below to listen to Rademeyer’s sentiments…
