The voter registration weekend was marred by the killing of a Ward 27 councillor while holding a community meeting at his ward office on Saturday.
With the November 4 local government elections approaching, the weekend was to be used to encourage potential voters who are not registered yet to do so, amid concerns that growing numbers of South Africans — especially the youth — are showing a lack of enthusiasm for participating in the electoral process.
But in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, the first day of the registration drive turned sour following news that ANC councillor Sicelo Mleve had been shot dead by unidentified assailants while holding a meeting.
The motive for the killing is still unclear, however, the incident is bound to add doubts to the minds of those who have grown sceptical of the political system and its ability to deliver the much-talked-about improvements in the lives of ordinary people.
This year’s elections come at a time when processes such as the Madlanga commission and parliamentary hearings are revealing that the main reason many of our towns and cities are falling apart is because some councillors and senior officials have been captured by criminal networks.
They see public procurement of goods and services by municipalities as a way to make a quick buck.
As a result, the Independent Electoral Commission, and others working in this space, are finding it harder to convince the public to go and vote.
Moreover, violence targeted at elected officials such as Mleve further causes citizens not to want to be involved with politics.
Yet, to fix our cities and towns, we need greater participation by citizens at the polls as well as to get the best people to put their names forward for election.
This, however, becomes impossible when the public’s perception is that the political system, especially at local government level, is under siege from criminal networks who do not hesitate to kill those who stand in their way.
Hence there is a need not only to arrest those responsible for Mleve’s death as soon as possible, but to also rid our councils and other forms of government of the criminal networks that are threatening to take them over.
