KwaZulu-Natal councillors have fled their homes after receiving threats to their lives, as political intolerance intensifies due to the collapse of coalition governments in local councils, according to the Sunday Times.
In the Uthukela district (Ladysmith), National Freedom Party (NFP) councillors who have been in hiding for close to a month spoke from a safe house last week to the Sunday Times. Councillor Nathi Mthethwa said he received several anonymous threats over the phone. The threats began after his party joined a coalition with the ANC and EFF.
‘It starts with money offers for us to vote a certain way at council, and if you refuse, it grows to threats of harm being done, calls that you are being followed and knocks at your home in the middle of the night. We are safe with security where we are [now], but it is not a sustainable way of living’, he said.
Councillors from the ANC, IFP and NFP in Zululand met to discuss their safety after a second attack on DA Zululand councillor, Swelakhe Shelembe, put his bodyguard in hospital.
Shelembe was chairing a multiparty ethics committee in the Abaqalusi municipality (Vryheid) into allegations of irregular expenditure by the mayor, deputy mayor and speaker at the time of the first attack on him.
He said the provincial department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs had offered no help.
‘The police have lost the war, it goes to the heart of what the Moerane commission [into political killings in KZN] said about inefficiencies of policing — and police have completely failed … Successful interventions are a deterrent, but in their absence, it’s a free for all.