Election hit-list? Politicians' unsolved killings mar South

>Khanyisile was a popular figure in Ladysmith -- a teacher at the local primary school, and a life-long member of the African National Congress (ANC).

>Many here saw a bright future for her.
She was standing as a Ladysmith councilor in South Africa's upcoming election, and her face smiles proudly down from the election posters still hanging on the street where she was murdered.
>"Vote ANC," they read.
>"My mother told me that someone warned her not to go to the Mandela Day event," says Zhamokhule.
Ladysmith's indoor stadium is packed with hundreds of mourners clad in the ANC's traditional colors: green, black and gold.
>A relative of Khanyisile steps up to the microphone, "Yes, some of you are mourning, but some of you are celebrating. Because you did this."

>Khanyisile was just the latest victim in a series of unsolved murders of ANC politicians in KwaZulu-Natal.
>In the run-up to this election, more than a dozen politicians have been killed in this province: shot while watching TV; killed taking their children to school; ambushed on the way home from political meetings.
>Not a single case has been solved.
>"We are making progress. It just takes time," says Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi a spokesman for the Hawks, the country's specialized investigation division.
>Several former investigators from South Africa's police told CNN that ANC members could be killing rivals to access elected government positions. The positions can mean access to corrupt wealth, they said.
>Even the ANC's leadership admits the party is wracked by factional infighting.
>"These killings are just the tip of the iceberg, people are killed when people can't be coerced by other means," says David Bruce, an independent researcher who studies violent crime.
>"It says a lot about how politics takes place and politics is organized. Access to political office is not just a means of making a living. It is a way of establishing and maintaining networks of patronage," he says.