Political Assassinations Rise Ahead of Local Elections, Exposing the Cost of Local Power
South Africa is heading into the 4 November local government elections under the shadow of a disturbing rise in suspected political assassinations, with researchers warning that the violence is increasingly tied not only to party rivalry, but to the value of local political office itself. At least 43 people were killed in 45 suspected political attacks between January and the end of September 2026, according to research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. That is already higher than the full-year totals recorded during the 2021 municipal elections, the 2024 national elections and 2025.
The pattern is important because it suggests that local elections may carry a different kind of risk from national polls. Organised crime researcher Julian Rademeyer has argued that political killings tend to intensify around municipal elections, when competition for councillor positions, local influence and access to public resources becomes more direct. The violence is not concentrated in one party or one province, although KwaZulu-Natal remains the country’s most affected region. Gauteng has also recorded a significant number of attacks, while killings have increasingly appeared in provinces that were historically less associated with political violence.
Recent cases have reinforced those concerns. Two ANC members were shot dead while campaigning in Umgababa, south of Durban, on 19 October. In September, several IFP candidates and activists were also killed in KwaZulu-Natal as political campaigning intensified. The immediate assumption in such cases is often that the motive must be political because the victim held political office. But researchers caution that the reality is often more complicated. Some attacks may be linked to party rivalry or internal contests over nominations. Others may involve tender disputes, local patronage networks, the taxi industry, construction-related crime or other illicit markets. In some instances, the political and criminal worlds may overlap so closely that separating one motive from another becomes difficult.
That overlap is one of the most important features of the current crisis. Local government controls access to contracts, housing allocations, jobs and development projects. In communities where unemployment is high and economic opportunities are limited, a ward councillor position can carry influence well beyond its formal salary. This can turn political office into an economic asset. Researchers who have studied political violence in KwaZulu-Natal have increasingly described a shift away from the ideological conflicts that characterised earlier periods of South African political violence. Today, competition may be driven more by control over money, appointments and local resources. That makes political assassination harder to understand using traditional political labels alone.
A killing may involve a party member, but the underlying dispute may be about procurement. A councillor may be targeted because of a political position, but the conflict may also involve business interests, criminal networks or disputes over land and development. This is why the term “political killing” should be used carefully. It describes a pattern worth investigating, but it does not automatically establish motive in an individual case. The scale of the violence has also renewed attention on the Political Killings Task Team, which was created in 2018 following recommendations from the Moerane Commission.
The unit brought together police, prosecutors and intelligence officials to investigate politically linked murders, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. Its future later became the subject of intense controversy after a directive to disband it was challenged by senior police officials. That dispute ultimately became part of the broader allegations now being examined by the Madlanga Commission. The issue is significant because investigators dealing with political assassinations often face cases involving powerful local interests, organised crime and witnesses who may fear retaliation. Arrests after a killing are therefore only one part of the solution.
Researchers have argued that prevention also requires political parties to address violent internal competition, law-enforcement agencies to protect investigations from interference and municipalities to reduce opportunities for corruption around tenders and appointments. South Africa has held competitive elections for more than three decades, and the overwhelming majority take place peacefully. The current rise in targeted killings should therefore not be interpreted as evidence that electoral violence defines the country’s democratic system. But it does expose a serious vulnerability.
Democracy depends on people being able to campaign, stand for office and participate in political life without fearing that competition for power could become a matter of life and death. The deeper concern is therefore not only the number of people being killed. It is what those killings reveal about the intersection of local politics, economic scarcity and organised crime. As South Africans prepare to vote, the question is no longer simply whether political assassinations are increasing. It is whether the institutions surrounding local government can reduce the incentives that make certain political positions worth killing for in the first place.
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