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A politician in South Africa is murdered at about twice the rate of a police officer, and roughly two and a half times the rate of an ordinary citizen.

Around 90 police officers are murdered in a typical year, against a dozen politicians. But there are 15 police for every politician; the bigger toll simply reflects the bigger group.

The national murder rate – an ordinary citizen's risk – is about 45 per 100 000, among the highest of any country in the world. That is the baseline.

The police do worse than the public they protect. Roughly 100 police officers are killed each year. Across a force of roughly 150 000 officers, that is a rate near 60 per 100 000 – a third above the ordinary citizen.

Politicians do worse again. Almost every elected representative in South Africa is a municipal councillor – we have about 10 000 of them, against fewer than a thousand Members of Parliament and provincial legislators combined. Official figures record 59 councillors murdered over the five years between 2020 and 2024, about twelve a year, a rate near 118 per 100 000.

Why Are Politicians Twice As Likely To Be Killed Than Police? 

A councillor is the lowest rung of elected government. Councillors vote on municipal budgets, approve service-delivery contracts, sit on oversight committees that scrutinise spending, and influence which companies win tenders for roads, housing, sanitation, and electricity. In a municipality of any size, those contracts can run into the hundreds of millions of rands a year. A councillor can play an instrumental role in determining who gets the work, and they can make life very difficult for officials who award contracts to the wrong people. Where governance is weak and oversight thin, that influence is worth a great deal to the right criminal or business interest.

Being either a politician or in the police entails risk far above the national baseline, but the source of the risk differs. A police officer faces risk because of what the work requires – confronting armed criminals. The danger is the job itself. A councillor faces no such physical exposure. They sit in meetings and vote on budgets. Their danger comes not from the work but from the value of the position they hold: the power to direct money. In a healthy democracy, that power is an instrument of public service. In South Africa, it has become something worth killing over.