An Inkatha Freedom Party member was shot in his car on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast today, the party said.
IFP spokesman Mntomuhle Khawula said Bongani Lushaba was ambushed in Oshabeni.
Khawula said from the scene: “Somebody opened fire with an AK-47. The police told me it was an AK-47”.
Police spokesman Colonel Jay Naicker said Lushaba was shot several times as he entered the St Faiths Road from a secondary road near Mehlomnyama.
Naicker confirmed that 13 spent AK-47 cartridges were found.
Khawula said Lushaba had been a proportional representative candidate in the 2011 local government elections.
This was the third politically-related killing in the area in the past two months.
In September the African National Congress’s Oshabeni branch chairman Dumisani Malunga and secretary Bheki Chiliza were gunned down after leaving a party meeting.
Khawula said Lushaba was not standing for any political post. A by-election was planned for the area following the death of the incumbent ward councillor.
Naicker said the motive for the killing was unclear and no arrests had been made.