He was not injured  but police statistics indicate he was one of nearly 17,000 victims of this particular violent crime this past year in a country where more than 50 people are murdered every day.

Thirty-seven-year-old Solly Msimanga has been mayor of the Tshwane metropole, which incorporates the capital city of Pretoria, since the opposition Democratic Alliance won local elections in 2016.

He says two armed men approached him when he left a restaurant and demanded the keys to his silver Mercedes Benz.

He believes he was lucky they did not try to take him as a hostage.

Msimanga says he was shaken by the incident but believes he was fortunate to have escape unharmed.

His car was armed with a tracker system that enabled authorities to track it down before it stopped working.

Carjackers have in the past taken children strapped into their safety seats when they sped away in stolen vehicles.

Violent crime is rife in South Africa.

Last year’s official crime statistics say 16 717 carhackings were reported.

That/s the highest number in the past decade.

South Africa’s murder rate is currently 52 people a day.

Per capita that’s thhehe eight highest in the world.

The post Mayor of South Africa’s capital city carjacked appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

The fallout is over the announcement of the party’s mayoral candidate for greater Pretoria are known as Tshwane.

ends intro

Police leave has been cancelled in Pretoria and officers‚have been drafted in from other areas to quell the violence that has seen at least 21 buses torched‚ foreign-owned business ransacked and roads into the townships barricaded  making it impossible for hundreds of thousands of people to get to work.

Journalists covering the unrest have been threatened.

Police have been engaged in running battles with protestors determined to block off townships to the east and west of Pretoria.

Police denied accusations that they had seriously underestimated the extent of the anger after the ANC

imposed a Zulu candidate, former cabinet minister Thoko Didiza on the Pretoria electorate

They say the ANC cannot bring a Zulu person to rule Pedi, Tsongas, Shangaans and Vendas.

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa says tribalism has no place in ANC politics.

Pretostors are saying they will burn down the capital if  incumbent mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa is not allowed to keep his job after local elections in early August.

The post Pretoria demonstrators violently reject ANC’s election candidate appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.