By Riaan de Villiers
Against widespread expectations, South Africa’s first inclusive elections on 26-29 April 1994 went off peacefully, and this has been the case ever since.
As President Cyril Ramaphosa put it in a message to voters before the 2024 general elections: ‘South Africa’s elections have taken place without major incident for the past 30 years. Once again, we have every confidence that this election will take place under conditions of peace, safety and tolerance, and that it will be free and fair.
‘The integrity of our elections is testament to the high regard in which South Africans hold their hard-won right to vote. It is an affirmation that no matter what our political differences are, when it comes to safeguarding our democracy, we are prepared to put these differences aside for the common good. …’
He went on to say: ‘Holding free, fair and peaceful elections are a barometer of the good health of our democracy. … ’
To the extent that this implies that South African electoral politics are relatively free of violence, thus attesting to a healthy democracy, this is a significant and arguably dangerous illusion – the violence just doesn’t occur on election days.
According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), at least 43 people have been murdered in suspected political assassinations in South Africa since the beginning of the year to the end of September.
Of these, 41 people were killed in 36 attacks directed at political party officials, ward councillors, members of civic organisations and movements, and traditional leaders. By comparison, 23 political killings were recorded in the same period in 2025.
The bloodiest period so far was the first voter registration weekend of 20–21 June, when six political campaigners were shot dead in targeted attacks across four provinces.
These and other figures show that political killings rise sharply in elections years — and have worsened steadily over the past decade.
Thus the GI-TOC reports that these nine-month figures are already higher than those for the 2021 municipal election year (30) the 2024 national election year (33) and the whole of 2025 (31), and already exceeds the previous highest annual figures in the monitoring series since 2015.
The GI-TOC is a civil society organisation based in Switzerland. Its Global Organized Crime Index assesses levels of criminality and resilience to organised crime in 193 countries. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative sources, it is underpinned by expert assessments and evaluations by regional observatories.
While it focuses primarily on suspected political assassinations, it also places them in the wider context of organized crime hits, minibus taxi-related murders, personal/domestic murder-for-hire cases and mass murders linked to criminal markets. The results of the latest survey was announced ealiler this monthy.
- In South Africa, its says, organised crime hits remain the largest category. The database records 78 organised crime incidents in the first nine months of 2026, exceeding 44 in the whole of 2025. Thirty-three were in the Western Cape, and man were linked to gang violence.
- Justice sector targets are a ‘significant concern’. Fourteen incidents involved people linked to the justice system, including police officers, witnesses, whistle-blowers and an attorney. ‘These attacks undermine the criminal justice system and weaken investigations, prosecutions and public confidence in the state.’
- According to the index, educators are also ‘emerging as targets’. Five attacks on school staff in the first nine months of 2026, three of them fatal, bear the marks of a hit. They followed three fatal attacks, on principals and a deputy principal, in the last two months of 2025. No motive has been recorded for most of the killings, although some of them may be linked to disputes and contestation over posts inside the schools.
- Minibus taxi-related assassinations are lower than in the past, but remain a key vector for violence. While 45 incidents were recorded in the first nine months of 2026, this was probably an undercount. ‘While the count is below the 2018 peak, taxi sector violence still matters because parts of the industry have supplied firearms and experienced shooters for political and organized crime hits.’
- Mass killings linked to criminal markets are being tracked separately and pose a ‘significant and growing state security concern’. 45 such incidents were recorded between 1 January and 30 September 2026, in which at least 210 people were killed and at least 79 wounded. Twenty-six were in the Western Cape, 24 in the Cape Town metropolitan municipality. Most were linked to gangs, taxi conflict, illegal mining or extortion.
All these figures confirm what many citizens already know, but party bosses and other talking heads are trying to sweep under the carpet, namely that, beyond our suburban enclaves, campaigning for a political party can cost you your life.
FEATURED IMAGE: Sinovuyo Dyokwe, a community activist and Democratic Alliance (DA) candidate in a Cape Town metro by-election, who was shot dead on 30 June 2026 after returning home from a voter registration event in the township of Dunoon. Picture: Yusuf Bramjee.
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