Police should be focusing on stopping crime instead of having to devote resources to curbing violent political rivalry, says KwaZulu-Natal’s SAPS provincial commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
His comments came as KwaZulu-Natal’s security cluster announced it would be deploying at least 17 000 police officers in the province to keep an eye on high-risk polling stations during the 29 May elections.
TimesLIVE quotes Mkhwanazi as saying at an IEC event during the week: ‘Political leaders, yes, we have high-risk areas because of you. The high-risk voting stations are as a result of people who don’t want to tolerate each other, people who violate each other’s rights as contained in the Constitution.
‘That forces us to increase the number of police officers we deploy in that particular voting station to be able to prevent crime.’
He added: ‘Please give us space, we have a lot of criminals out there that are raping, stealing, and robbing people. We should be focusing on those and not policing those that have a right to go and vote because the right is for everyone.’