Gunman kills four ANC Youth League members ahead of South Africa’s local elections

Johannesburg – A gunman killed four members of the youth division of South Africa’s main political party, the ANC, in an attack three weeks before local polls, the group and police said on Wednesday.

Politically linked assassinations have surged ahead of the November 4 local government elections, with 43 people killed this year to the end of September, according to an independent civil society group.

The attacker opened fire on a memorial service for another ANC member on Tuesday in Katlehong, southeast of Johannesburg, police said.

Two men died on the scene and two in hospital, a police statement said. They were aged between 21 and 27.

“Three other victims remain in hospital,” it said.

The alleged attacker turned himself in to police, who handed the case to a special Political Killings Task Team.

Bad governance and corruption

The ANC Youth League is an autonomous body within the African National Congress (ANC), the party that led the struggle against apartheid and took power after the first all-race election in 1994.

ANC support has dropped in recent decades on complaints of bad governance and corruption, with rival spinoff parties scooping up voters.

It was forced into a coalition government in 2024.

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) said in a report released this month that 43 people had been killed in 45 attacks with suspected political links in the first nine months of this year.

The motives are not always clear but could include internal rivalry or corruption, according to analysts.

Confirming that four of its members had died, the ANCYL said: “We can clarify that, according to our information, the suspect is not a member of the ANCYL, the ANC or any of the Alliance formations.”