DURBAN — Gunmen opened fire on local government candidate Khethelo Mdluli outside his rural home as he was with his young children, one of a surge of suspected political assassinations ahead of South Africa’s polls next month.
The 40-year-old died in hospital at the end of August, with his family telling AFP they did not know why he was targeted.
“My brother was not a violent man,” said the family representative, Sifiso Mdluli.
Mdluli was running as a ward councillor for the veteran Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in the November 4 local elections, seen as a test of support for the African National Congress (ANC) after it lost its national parliamentary majority in 2024.
“One of his IFP colleagues, who was speaking at the funeral, said he had alerted them that there were people threatening him in the days leading to his murder,” his brother said.
The day after Mdluli died, another IFP ward council candidate was gunned down in broad daylight after arriving home in the same province, the politically volatile KwaZulu-Natal.
“He was a good man. We are scared,” said a relative of 34-year-old Lucky Sokhela who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals.
The party called a special Political Killings Task Team (PKTT), established in 2018, to investigate.
“The killing of political candidates cannot be treated as ordinary criminality,” it said. “Let the ballot, not the bullet, decide.”
In a new killing this week also referred to the PKTT, four members of the ANC youth division died after a gunman opened fire on them on Tuesday outside Johannesburg.
The motive was unknown and the attacker had turned himself in, police said.
