A meeting of leaders of different political parties in KwaZulu-Natal and the National Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa have raised optimism about our province’s attempts to end politically related murders.

The group gathered in Durban on Tuesday to discuss incidents of political party related murders in KwaZulu-Natal. The meeting was convened after the ANC provincial Tripartite Alliance political summit’s delegates called on National Minister of Police to create a Task Team to investigate incidents of political party-related murders in KwaZulu-Natal.

We are pleased that the Minister has assigned the police officers from the national office to work with the police in KwaZulu-Natal to investigate political killings. The meeting also dealt with issues of violence in the taxi industry and the faction fights that have taken place in the province.

The ANC is happy that the minister has responded quickly to our call and we have no doubt that the national team will work well with the local police who have made some progress on many of the cases. We call on all political parties to assist the police by inculcating the culture of political tolerance amongst their members.

We strongly believe that there will be no peace in our province unless the alleged industry of assassins and contracted killers are dealt with. We condemn all the politically related deaths and call on our people to volunteer information that will help the law enforcement agencies.

The ANC urges all political parties to avoid usage of the unfortunate past of politically related violence to justify the current killings.