Assassinated candidates can still be elected

All the councillor candidates who have been recently killed across the country will still be fielded to contest their respective wards in the upcoming local government elections.

Independent Electoral Commission spokeswoman Kate Bapela said yesterday that the law did not allow the commission to do anything now in terms of getting the candidates replaced.

"There is no time to replace the deceased candidates before the elections which are scheduled for next week," Bapela said.

"We will go with the candidates who were nominated. Just after the elections we will have to hold by-elections in all the affected wards."

This could, however, be a huge blow to candidates who might win in the wards where there have been killings of candidates as their electoral victories would now have to be subjected to a rerun.

KwaZulu-Natal has seen the largest number of political killings ahead of the elections with most candidates belonging to the ANC.

ANC leaders and veterans, including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, have recently come out harshly against the gunning down of candidates.

A multi-disciplinary task team has been established by the Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko to try and get to the bottom of the political killings.

The latest was the gunning down of two ANC ward councillor candidates when Khanyisile Ngobese-Sibisi and Bongani Skhosana were shot hours apart in Ladysmith and Umziwabantu municipality, respectively.

IFP national chairperson Blessed Gwala said the party was not concerned about a rerun of the elections.