Mthatha, home to one of the Nelson Mandela Museums and the town closest to where he grew up, should have been busy with elections prep this week. Instead, roads were blocked, making entry and exit into the beautiful but poverty-stricken area impossible. 

Taxi operators brought the town to a standstill on Monday, preventing teachers and health workers from getting to work and, very alarmingly, negatively affecting special voting. (Most of us voted on Wednesday, but some, like critical healthcare workers, voted on Monday and Tuesday.) The reason? They were protesting police confiscating firearms over the weekend. 

Why do taxis have arms, you ask? The taxi associations in the areas hire private guards to protect their bosses and drivers, and a number of operators and guards had pitched up, armed, at the Nelson Mandela Academic Hospital on the pretext of protecting drivers who were injured during a shootout between rival taxi associations the previous week. 

Hospital staff then complained to Eastern Cape police, who confiscated 38 pistols and five rifles from the group. 

Shortly after, all hell broke out, with taxi operators making the roads in and out of Mthatha inaccessible and demanding their weapons back. 

Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane issued a forceful statement condemning the violence, saying if taxi operators continued behaving as they did on Monday, the government would have no other option but to review their operating licences.

But authorities still caved, giving the firearms back (three were held back by police for possible involvement in the shooting that sparked everything). The protests were promptly called off on Monday afternoon, with one taxi boss saying they “embarked on protest because we felt our safety was compromised after we were disarmed”.

If it all sounds rather lawless, it’s because it is. This was a direct assault on our democracy, which is unacceptable. It’s yet another reason we need a change in government. No private group should take the law into their own hands and disrupt access to health, education and voting.