Cape Town - Crime is a hot topic ahead of elections, and some political parties have taken the hardest possible line by calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, despite the Constitutional Court forbidding it.
Cape Town is the murder capital of South Africa, according to the 2018/19 State of Urban Safety in SA Report, and tackling crime is a massive campaign point for political parties vying for voter support.
One party has handwritten posters up around the city, with a single campaign call: bring back the death penalty. Allan Pillay, leader of All Things Are Possible (Atap), said he would like to make murder a death penalty offence - and possibly also the rape of children under the age of 10.
“We must hold people accountable for their acts,” he said. “Some murderers only serve three years because there’s no place in prison to keep them all.”
Pillay said he founded the party as a response to crime touching his life.
“I was minding my own business, but then there was this one man in Delft. He was sitting in his house with his family when thugs came and kicked down his door. They took the TV and stabbed him in front of his family,” Pillay said.
“I was so emotionally touched by this, I went to my neighbours and said we need to do something about this. We can’t just sit back, we’ve got to protect ourselves.”
Atap may be a small party contesting provincial elections for the first time, but other more established parties have also called for the death penalty to curb crime.
The Freedom Front Plus’s manifesto does not mention the death penalty, but spokesperson Pieter Swart said it would support reinstating capital punishment. “Our stance is that murder, rape and violent crimes should be punishable with the death penalty.”
The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) also supports capital punishment, but only under certain conditions, according to MP and former deputy mayor of Cape Town, Grant Haskin.
“The ACDP supports the imposition of the death penalty for serious and violent crime such as premeditated murder, but there are three reasons it cannot be implemented currently,” Haskin said.
“First, the Constitution does not provide for it. Second, the criminal justice system is flawed so there is no way of being sure the accused who is sentenced is actually guilty - an important prerequisite, especially for the death penalty.
“Third, the ACDP cannot ignore the deeply unequal access to legal representation. In our system, the poor are not able to access the best legal minds. This is a systemic unfairness.”
The DA did not commit to endorsing or decrying the death penalty, saying that the party was governed by the Constitution.
“Whether we like it or not, the Constitutional Court has made a decision on capital punishment and we respect this decision, as we do any other decision of the Constitutional Court,” said provincial spokesperson Daylin Mitchell.
“The real deterrent to crime is the sure and certain knowledge that criminals will be put behind bars.”
While the EFF has considered supporting the death penalty in the past, the party has now solidified it’s anti-capital punishment stance.
“The EFF will always be opposed to the death penalty given how it was abused by the apartheid government to deal with dissent,” said MP Nazier Paulsen. “In fact, the EFF government will ensure that all correctional services are corrective rather than punitive. It will ensure that the correctional system will be transformed to include compulsory education and skilling.”
ANC spokesperson Dennis Cruywagen confirmed the national governing party’s long-held stance: that capital punishment goes against the Constitution and should never be instituted in the country again.
“We understand that there are some in the country who are calling for the return of the death penalty,” Cruywagen said.
“However, the court has ruled on the matter so there is no going back. We value the sanctity of life.”