Police minister Bheki Cele says a risk assessment has identified between 270 and 300 high-risk election hotspots countrywide.
He said four provinces — KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape — were hotspots but that did not necessarily indicate other provinces were altogether peaceful. “There are pockets everywhere,” Cele said.
He said high-risk areas identified in Gauteng, SA's most densely populated province and economic hub, are “more restricted” to Tshwane, particularly Attridgeville, Mabopane and Mamelodi.
The SA Police Service (SAPS) is already tackling tension in two of the three areas Cele identified, to prevent violence before voting day. “In Mabopane and Mamelodi we have created the special teams of investigation both led by the brigadiers,” Cele said.
He named Gauteng's high-risk hub during a briefing led by defence minister Thandi Modise on SA’s readiness for the 2021 local government elections, which occur in less than a week.
“We have the intelligence co-ordinating committee that has conducted a security threat assessment and they have assured us that the country is relatively stable and that this is conducive to free and fair elections,” said Modise.
According to Cele, risk assessors have rated the vast majority of SA’s voting stations as low risk: more than 19,000 polling sites are low risk while 3,000 are labelled medium risk.
The government’s threat assessments for elections incorporate input from the security cluster, Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) and State Security Agency (SSA).
Rankings could change, he added, and surveillance was ongoing. The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (Natjoints), Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) and National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee (Nicoc) are “monitoring these issues going forward” said the police minister.
Natjoints co-ordinates law enforcement and security, with entities including the police and metro police, army, health department, intelligence and Eskom. Nicoc co-ordinates SA’s intelligence gathering.
Although Cele refused to disclose the tally of officers deployed nationally, due to security concerns, he said police would be deployed according to risk rankings.
Police reservists would be on standby to provide backup as required, too. “There will be adequate policing,” he insisted.
Cele said police in the Western Cape recently received 150 cars and 193 “extra people” to quell “violence and crime in the stations that are known like Delft, Khayelitsha, Makhaza and Marikana”.
In KwaZulu-Natal, police were already focused on de-escalating tension before election day, he said: “They have sent extra personnel and extra machinery.”
The province’s police have conducted investigations and found six recent killings were politically motivated, while at least one attempted murder was driven by the same, in the build-up to the elections in the province.
Cele faced questioning on prior violence in KwaZulu-Natal and the number of alleged instigators suspected of inciting deadly violence during what President Cyril Ramaphosa called a “failed insurrection”, which left more than 300 people dead.
The targeted destruction of businesses, widespread looting, frenzied stampedes, road blockades and killings began in KwaZulu-Natal after the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma on July 8. They spread to Gauteng and cost SA's economy billions.
He said the tally of suspected instigators stood at 18 people. “Yes, there will be areas that were part of the unrest in July […] I will look at it accordingly,” Cele said.
Modise said police and military deployment over three voting days, including two assigned for special votes, would be guided “by structured threat analysis and analysis of crime patterns”.
The SA National Defence Force (SANDF) focus would be guarding key points and strategic installations, such as Eskom sites and motorways critical to freighting goods throughout SA and the region.
“If you touch those, you actually start tampering with the image, the sovereignty and the right of this country to stand with other nations,” said Modise.
The army would be on standby to support the IEC and to the SAPS, she added.
Special voting is scheduled from 8am to 5pm on October 30 and October 31 while regular voting takes place on November 1, which Ramaphosa declared a public holiday.
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