On Wednesday two men were shot at the Palm Taxi Rank in Delft. The rank sits next to Sunray Primary School, which is a key voting station for Ward 24. In five days, people in that ward are meant to queue there to choose who runs their city. Earlier the same week, another person was gunned down at the same rank, News24 reports.
The shootings are not political killings. But for voters on the Cape Flats, the question next Wednesday is no longer only who to vote for. It is whether they can get to the station and home again safely.
What is driving it
Police say the taxi violence is linked to a route dispute between two rival associations, the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (CATA) and the Cape Organisation for the Democratic Taxi Association (CODETA), over the Delft, Langa and Epping corridor. According to EWN, it has claimed about a dozen lives, left others wounded and disrupted public transport.
It is not confined to one area. News24 reports taxi-related shootings in Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Mfuleni as well. Gang violence has flared at the same time: on Saturday evening five people at a braai in Lavender Hill were gunned down, including the son of a local community worker.
What the authorities say
At a briefing on Thursday, Provincial Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Sizakhele Dyantyi said police had enough people to secure the elections without pulling officers from other operations, and that the election has “its own plan”. He warned that those stirring violence “will be dealt with harshly”. Cape Times reports that arrests have already been made and the cases are before the courts, and that commuters were warned to expect disruptions as police enforce the law.
Major-General Luyanda Damoyi confirmed the SANDF is already deployed in Delft and will deploy further as intelligence dictates. Delft is one of the areas covered by Operation Prosper, the year-long army deployment meant to support police against organised crime.
The City’s safety and security commissioner, Johan Brand, said metro law enforcement would back SAPS through the election, including the two special voting days on Monday and Tuesday. The IEC’s provincial electoral officer, Michael Hendrickse, told News24 that SAPS has assured the commission it is assessing high-risk areas, and that the IEC remains “concerned about any incidents of crime that could affect voters’ ability to access voting stations”.
On the political side, Mobility MEC Isaac Sileku and the City’s Urban Mobility MMC, Rob Quintas, met SANTACO and CODETA on Thursday. CATA did not attend, citing prior commitments. Another meeting is set for Monday. Sileku said the province is preparing an urgent court application to clarify operating rights, and plans an inquiry into alleged violations by identified associations.
The questions that should not wait until after the count
Start with a line from Thursday’s briefing. Cape Times quotes Dyantyi as saying the violence “could not have been foreseen”. That is hard to square with the facts on the table. A fight over who may run which route is not a surprise event. It is a dispute over operating rights that has turned lethal, and the province itself now says those rights need clarifying in court. If operating rights on the Delft, Langa and Epping corridor are unclear enough to need an urgent court application now, someone should explain why they were not clarified before a dozen people died.
Second, the army. Community pastor Charles George, who has worked in Delft for twenty years, asked residents on Wednesday: “Where is the army?” The answer, it turns out, is that it is already there. That is the uncomfortable part. Operation Prosper was sold as a force multiplier, and shootings are still happening at a rank next to a school. Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Defence is scheduled to be briefed this morning on the President’s letter of employment of the SANDF under Operation Prosper, dated 21 October, according to the PMG schedule. MPs should use that slot to ask what the deployment has actually changed in Delft, not only whether the paperwork is in order.
Third, the voters who depend on taxis. The people most exposed here are working-class commuters, a point even the ANC’s Dullah Omar region made in its statement, noting matric exams are also under way. If routes are disrupted next week, by violence or by enforcement, the people who lose their vote are the ones without cars. Parties are already planning around this. ActionSA says it is triaging high-risk areas and may deploy private security for its own volunteers. Private security for party agents is not a plan for the public.
What Cape Town needs before Monday is simple and checkable: a public list of which voting stations SAPS regards as high risk, what visible presence will be at each one on 2, 3 and 4 November, and a commitment that taxi routes serving those areas will run. Assurances given to the IEC behind closed doors do not help a voter in Delft decide whether to walk to Sunray Primary.
The vote is on Wednesday. The state’s first job is to make sure people can cast it without risking their lives. Everything else, the court application, the inquiry, the Monday meeting CATA may or may not attend, comes after that.