All is Not Free and Fair in Ward 19 By-Elections for the 28th January 2009

22 January 2009

Thursday 22 January 2009 by Nic

On the 19th January 2009 the offices of the Kliptown Concerned Residents (KCR) was burgled and office equipment was stolen by unknown thugs. The KCR offices are located at the Kliptown Community Centre next to the Kliptown Police Station. The property belongs to Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) and it is home to many organisations and business forums. KCR has been occupying the office since late last year and there were no incidents reported but when KCR made it public that it will be contesting the coming by-elections in Ward 19 on the 28th January 2009, all hell broke loose.

The first thing that the thugs stole in the office is the KCR elections package (poster’s, pamphlets, stickers and documents) that were going to be used in the by-election campaign. Office equipment was also stolen. It is clear that these were not just hungry criminals. KCR has concluded that it is "comrade" tsotsis whose aim is to weaken the KCR elections campaign. What made matters worse was that the local police were not willing to open a case for KCR members and it took a senior police officer to get the SAPS to open a case.

Since November, many political parties in the area have been trying to lobby/influence the KCR leadership as part of trying to build a false elections alliance. Firstly, it was the Democratic Alliance (DA) that started to lobby KCR members to join them and contest the by-elections under their banner. Then there were the rumours that KCR had joined the Congress of the People (COPE) when it was only a statement by comrade Sipho Jantjies (KCR Organiser) that if the people of Kliptown want him to join COPE as an individual, he would gladly join it.

It is clear that there will never be free and fair elections when other political groups use dirty tactics to try and undermine and divide local community organisations like KCR.