South Africa’s special voting started this morning. Before the first ballot went into a box, the security cluster gave us the number that should frame this whole week: 20 murders linked to political representatives, party members and supporters during this election period. Seven arrests.
That is not a national election. These are council seats. People are being killed over who gets to sit in a municipal chamber and, by extension, who gets close to municipal budgets and tenders.
What NATJOINTS told the country
At Sunday evening’s briefing in Tshwane, NATJOINTS chairperson Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili set out the figures, reported by SAnews and Sowetan:
- 139 election-related dockets registered since the process started, 48 suspects arrested, 69 cases still under investigation, 25 enrolled in court.
- 72 of those cases are offences under the Electoral Act itself.
- 20 murders involving political figures, members and supporters, with seven arrests. Gauteng recorded seven, KwaZulu-Natal six, the Western Cape three, the Eastern Cape two, and the Free State and North West one each.
“We remain particularly concerned about incidents involving the loss of life during the election period,” Mosikili said. The Political Killings Task Team is on the cases.
Voting stations have been sorted into high, medium and low risk, with deployments set by intelligence assessments. The SANDF is on standby for hotspots, including air support to move officials and material if weather cuts roads. NATJOINTS says police stations will keep working normally and it will brief the media daily.
All of that is reassuring as far as it goes. But seven arrests for 20 killings is a 35% hit rate, and an arrest is not a conviction. What deters the next killing is a conviction, not a docket. A list of high-risk stations exists, by the cluster’s own account. Voters in those areas are not told which ones they are.
Cape Town: a court order, finally
The Western Cape is the clearest test this week. NATJOINTS lists taxi-related violence there as an “operational concern”. That is a polite phrase for what has been happening.
On Friday we wrote about the shooting at the Palm taxi rank in Delft, next to a ward voting station. Since then, the Western Cape High Court has granted an interim interdict against the rival CATA and CODETA associations, Cape Times reports. It bars violence, intimidation, road blockades, unlawful route takeovers and collecting money through threats, and restricts firearms at and around transport facilities and in taxis on the affected routes. Leaders must tell their members in writing to comply and file a sworn report within three days of being served. They have until 10:00 on 20 November to argue why the order should not be made final.
Separately, the provincial registrar has barred CATA from registering vehicles for its Langa Inter-township Taxi Association for six months. The registrar found the association knowingly allowed unlawful route invasions and failed to control its drivers.
The violence did not wait for the paperwork. On Thursday night a taxi driver was shot dead and a woman wounded in Mfuleni, Cape Argus reports. Three suspects were arrested soon after, and a fourth man was arrested at Site C in Khayelitsha with an unlicensed firearm. The same report lists killings in Epping on 16 October, Valhalla Park on 21 October, Delft and Maitland on 22 October, and Gugulethu and Khayelitsha on 27 October.
Western Cape Mobility MEC Isaac Sileku said: “We have tried other ways to stop the violence, but it has continued, leaving us with no choice but to approach the court.” The province meets both associations again today, after CATA skipped Thursday’s talks.
The court route is the right one. It also came weeks into a route war that SANTACO’s Western Cape spokesperson linked to retaliation for the Epping ambush, and four days before an election.
What should happen this week
None of this is a reason to stay home. It is a reason to demand that the state does its job visibly:
- Publish the high-risk list in general terms. Not operational detail, but enough for voters to know whether their area is getting extra cover and where to report trouble.
- Report arrests daily, by province. NATJOINTS has promised daily briefings. Make the political-killing numbers a standing item, with arrests and court dates.
- Enforce the Cape Town order on Wednesday. If taxi bosses are in contempt of a court interdict on election day, the police should treat it as exactly that.
- Keep commuters moving. Many voters in Delft, Mfuleni and Khayelitsha depend on taxis to reach work and, on Wednesday, possibly a voting station. Safe transport is part of a free election.
Intimidating or coercing voters is an offence under the Electoral Act, NATJOINTS reminded parties. So is killing people over politics, under every law we have. Twenty families already know the price of this election. The state owes them arrests that stick, and owes the rest of us a vote without fear.
Special voting: today and Tuesday, 08:00 to 17:00. Election day: Wednesday 4 November, 07:00 to 21:00. Campaigning ends at midnight on Tuesday.