In the ranks of public servants, the post of rural ward council member in a speck of a town like this one would seem no great prize. The job pays about $150 a month, and its occupant must digest a steady diet of complaints from residents about the most fundamental ailments afflicting South Africa: schools that do not teach, taps that do not deliver water, crime that the police seem helpless to stop, jobs that are impossible to find.

But ward councilors are also a conduit for development projects in their areas, and they can influence the awarding of government contracts. The potential upside — earnings from bribes or surreptitious deals — is high.

“Due to the high rate of unemployment, people look for any opportunity to create an income and capitalize on it,” said Mzwandile Mkhwanazi, the regional chairman of the A.N.C. in the area that includes Oshabeni. “They are influenced by levels of poverty. They come up with any ways and means of getting money.”

Such changes in fortune explain why the post of ward councilor in Oshabeni, an impoverished town nestled in rolling hills about 15 miles inland from the Indian Ocean, was so hotly contested. When the woman who held the post died of illness in August, many local politicians were eager to throw their hats into the ring.

One of them was a young taxi driver named Sfiso Khumalo, the leader of the local branch of the A.N.C.’s Youth League. But Mr. Khumalo did not have a very good reputation, fellow Youth League members said. He was hotheaded, they said, and had spent nine years in prison for theft.

“We knew him as a stealer,” said Gcinile Duma, the secretary of the Youth League. “He had been in jail and was with the wrong kind of people.”