In recent days, a candidate for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party was gunned down ahead of forthcoming local elections, while three women were killed and several others injured in a drive-by shooting, also of ANC members.
Such killings have become almost 'normal' in the country, political violence in the democratic era, beginning in 1994, never fully subsiding. And in recent months, it has resurged as an important poll looms.
In incidents over the last week, three young women were shot in the head in the sprawling shantytown of Khayelitsha, outside Cape Town, in an execution-style killing.
