Political killings a 'pattern of deeply rooted violence' in KZN
The recent spate of ward candidate killings in KwaZulu-Natal in the run-up to the local government polls is a pattern of deeply rooted violence in the province's history.
That's according to Crispin Hemson, the Director of the Centre of Non-violence at the Durban University of Technology.
"We have a very traumatic history in this province in particular, and we have yet to find ways of addressing that very divisive and because of that the violence can always take many different forms, it could be xenophobic violence, or it could be taxi wars - killings on the basis for positions within political parties and so on."
Over this past weekend, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) councillor candidate in Pietermaritzburg, Thulani Shangase, was gunned down on Sunday night.
On Friday, Cato Crest African National Congress (ANC) ward candidate Siyabonga Mkhize and fellow party member Mzukisi Nyanga were shot dead while they were campaigning in the area.
Last month, three women who belonged to the ANC were killed in a drive-by shooting in Inanda.
Hemson says ward councillor roles are often seen as positions of power.
He says he's concerned there may be more potential political attacks.
"What drives this is the material interests of the people concerned, that is another factor behind the culture of killings is that people desperately want those jobs and they see them then as an opportunity to in a corrupt system people will see that those are the opportunities and the ability to access power to gain in the interim through corruption."
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