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South Africa’s upcoming elections are overshadowed by the threat of potential violence, according to a new report, revealing a dangerous collaboration between criminal networks and state actors, both competing for power and wealth in the country.

According to this report on killings in the country, in the run-up to election D-day, politically motivated hits have been running rampant, posing a real threat to our democracy, as well as our safety and sanity as citizens.

The Politics of Murder: Criminal governance and targeted killings in South Africa, authored by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) analysts Rumbi Matamba and Chwayita Thobela, noted that “while there are some 64 elections being held the world over in 2024, South Africa’s elections stand out for the very real threat of violence that they bring, a cumulation of the influence of criminal networks and state-embedded actors in driving criminality.”

The illuminating new report draws on research from sources including GI-TOC’s South Africa Organised Crime Observatory (SA-Obs) as well as a local and national news database, Daily Maverick reports.

“Targets of political killings in South Africa include activists, whistle-blowers, local councillors, party supporters and government administrators, but local councillors make up the majority of victims,” the report said.

“At the heart of this is the battle for power and self-enrichment in a highly unequal society, which is reflected in the assassination trends.”

The report stated that a higher number of political assassinations and spikes in violence are more likely to occur in municipal election years than in national election years, but also noted, “The greatest number of political assassinations recorded in the database was in fact during the 2019 national elections, when 42 incidents were noted.”

Although security is being ramped up to ensure everything runs smoothly on May 29, blood has already been shed and lives have already been taken.

“In the first four months of 2024 alone, the SA-Obs recorded 10 politically motivated assassinations, an average of at least one hit every two weeks between January and April,” Matamba and Thobela found in their report.

Exhibit A:

The report further notes that the incidents follow the same grim pattern of previous years, where the killings are “brutal, often carried out by hitmen with little regard for bystanders and frequently targeting high-profile individuals”.

“The killings have also become more brazen, with victims targeted at public gatherings, often in front of children and community members.”

Matamba and Thobela said political assassinations in the country could be understood “as part of a system of collaborative criminal governance, involving local politicians and government administrators colluding with criminal actors to eliminate rivals”.

Targeted killings in the country were enmeshed in criminal networks that involved “State-embedded actors”, per the reports, which “lead to increased violence in gang-afflicted communities, influence transparency and accountability in state-owned enterprises, and affect the provision of essential services such as water, electricity and sanitation”.

There had been political assassinations in all nine of South Africa’s provinces, with KwaZulu-Natal experiencing the brunt of the attacks. Between 2015 and 2024, KZN saw 158 of 280 recorded cases.

“In addition to its long history of violence, the province has a substantial number of illegal firearms in circulation from internal arms flows, as well as from arms trafficking related to the instability in Mozambique,” Matamba and Thobela found in their report.

“The province also has a notoriously violent taxi industry, which provides firearms and hitmen to the rest of the country and sometimes to other parts of southern Africa.”

The report stated that the easy access to contract killers and illicit firearms in the province poses a major threat to political stability.

The report highlighted that “gangsterism in South Africa is inextricably caught up in issues of governance”.

“There have been allegations of collusion between municipal officials and alleged underworld figures who run businesses such as construction companies,” it said.

“In the Western Cape, for example, there were accusations that some tenders were manipulated by municipal and council employees in favour of companies accused of having criminal connections.”

The proof is in the pudding:

In February of last year, Wendy Kloppers, a City of Cape Town official, was murdered in a shooting at the Symphony Way Housing Project building site in Delft. City manager Lungelo Mbandazayo told IOL that Kloppers was killed after the City refused to comply with gangsters’ demands for work from contractors at the housing project.

Also last year, the alleged high-profile gang leader, Nafiz Modack, was arrested for the 2020 murder of Anti-Gang Unit Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear. The report also referenced the murder of Simon Stanfield in March 2023 – he was the cousin of alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield, who, along with his wife, Nicole, was arrested on charges of car theft, fraud and attempted murder.

[source:dailymaverick]