Around 43 people have been killed in suspected political assassinations in South Africa during the first nine months of 2026, raising fears of an increasingly violent run-up to the November local government elections.

The figure, recorded in a new report by Julian Rademeyer of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), is already significantly in excess of the 23 political killings recorded during the same period last year.

GI-TOC’s database has recorded 45 political attacks between January and September, targeting politicians, councillors, political party officials, civic activists, and traditional leaders.

This represents a significant rise over previous years. “This is already higher than the full-year political totals for the 2021 municipal election year (30), the 2024 national election year (33) and 2025 (31), and already exceeds the previous highest annual figures in the monitoring series since 2015 – 2019 (42) and 2022 (40) – with the highest-risk months still ahead as contests for political power gather pace," Rademeyer observed.

The chart below shows the number people murdered in political killings in 2026 to date, by affiliation to a political party, civic movement, or traditional leadership.

The chart below shows the number of political attacks and political killings in South Africa, in 2026, by month.

The violence was particularly pronounced around the first voter registration weekend in June. Six political campaigners were killed in targeted attacks across four provinces during the period, making it the deadliest point of the year for political violence.

The broader assassination picture is also worsening. GI-TOC recorded 205 targeted-killing incidents, with some 184 resulting in the death of at least one person over the course of these incidents – these incidents encompassed attacks driven by factors including those other than politics – across various categories by the end of September. Organised crime accounted for the largest share, with 78 incidents, which is already substantially higher than the 44 recorded during the whole of 2025. The Western Cape was particularly affected, with 33 organised-crime assassination incidents recorded during the nine-month period, many associated with gang violence.

The report also highlights attacks on people connected to the justice system. Fourteen incidents involved police officers, witnesses, whistle-blowers, or attorneys, with 17 fatalities. Such killings pose a threat beyond the individual victims, potentially disrupting investigations and prosecutions while undermining confidence in the criminal justice system.

School staff are another emerging target. Five attacks on educators were recorded during the first nine months of the year, three of which were fatal. These followed three fatal attacks on school principals and a deputy principal during the final two months of 2025.

Taxi-related killings remain another important source of violence, with 45 incidents recorded so far this year. GI-TOC cautions that the figure is likely to be an underestimate because its database depends heavily on publicly available information.

It is not entirely clear what the cumulative number of victims was, since the report points out that there is overlap between the various categories of assassination. This also means that with local elections approaching, competition for political power and various ancillary conflicts could make for a hazardous period ahead.