Worrying flashes of political intolerance — election posters ripped down, opponents pelted with stones, gunshots and burning tyres — are emerging despite assurances of a “zero tolerance” approach to intimidation, violence and lawlessness as we prepare go to the polls next Wednesday.
The Wild-West-like scenes of chaos as ANC and EFF supporters clashed on Sunday while campaigning at Juju Valley in Seshego, Limpopo, are a case in point.
One brief video clip, lasting about 60 seconds, of the tense stand-off showed firearms being brandished openly and more than a dozen gunshots can be heard as supporters in party regalia duck for cover. Shockingly, a nine-year-old bystander was injured during the fracas as rival supporters pelted each other with stones and the air was thick with smoke from burning tyres.
A 25-year-old man was shot and wounded. Several other people were injured by flying stones. Amid the mayhem — as ANC supporters embarked on a door-to-door election campaign in the EFF stronghold, according to ANC provincial spokesperson Jimmy Machaka — was Polokwane mayor John Mpe with what appeared to be armed bodyguards — walking alongside a person shooting into the air.
Both parties condemned the incident, pointing accusatory fingers for the shooting. What transpired is a stark reminder of how quickly emotions can reach boiling point and end in bloodshed. What did the ANC and EFF leaders on the ground at the time do to diffuse the violence? Should the police not have been called in before the ANC campaign, knowing their destination was a so-called “no-go area” for the ruling party?
There are so many questions. At the lesser extreme, but clearly breaking the law, are the recent cases of a 71-year-old Johannesburg man, and 64-year-old woman in Sasolburg, caught on camera allegedly removing ANC election posters. Both were arrested and will have their day in court. Ironically, on the same day stones and bullets flew in Seshego, police top brass presented the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (Natjoints) election safety plan.
During the first and second voter registration weekends, 50 criminal cases were reported with 45 suspects arrested. Of these, 11 were arrested for public violence, 10 for contravening the Electoral Act, nine for assault and two for malicious damage to property.
Three suspects were nabbed in other cases.
One of the most important things we should all keep top of mind in the final days before casting our votes — and after the results are announced — is tolerance. Burning tyres, shooting randomly into the air, hurling rocks, bashing an election poster off a pole defiantly with a walking stick, all demonstrate how politicians have successfully amplified our differences to carve up their slice of the electorate. That’s the nature of politics. But we should all be smarter.
It’s OK to disagree. Be tolerant. Show compassion. Nobody wants an election marked by indelible ink on fingernails and bloodshed on the streets.
