The police and the army were deployed in South Africa on Monday, the call for a national blockade by a radical leftist party raising the specter of the deadly riots of 2021 fed by an economic and social context still at half mast.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, led by the red-beret troublemaker Julius Malema, had urged South Africans to blockade the country and demand the resignation of President Cyril Ramaphosa, deemed incapable of remedying endemic unemployment (32 .9%), growing poverty and a severe electricity crisis. “No one can stop a revolution,” Mr. Malema said last week to his supporters.
The call from the party known for its penchant for provocation had in the previous days revived the memory of the wave of riots and looting which had killed more than 350 people in July 2021. These violence, the worst since the end of the apartheid, had initially been triggered by the incarceration of former President Jacob Zuma but were also a sign of a tense social and economic climate.
Only a few thousand demonstrators finally answered the call on Monday. Some 5,000 people gathered in the capital Pretoria, fewer than 200 in Cape Town where the city experienced only “minimal disruption”, according to a statement. And a rally also took place in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (southeast).
The EFF, which won around 10% of the vote in the last local elections, had threatened to block ports, parliament, border crossings and the stock exchange in Johannesburg. On Monday, some schools preferred to close their doors as a precaution and worried traders kept their curtains down.
But “the country has not been brought to a standstill”, welcomed the president’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, to AFP. “The strong presence and visibility of law enforcement helped avert the looming mayhem and anarchy.” Cyril Ramaphoa had promised last week to prevent “anarchy”.
Important police devices were in place, nearly 3,500 soldiers mobilized. In the night from Sunday to Monday, 87 people were arrested for disturbing public order.
The ruling ANC welcomed in a statement the limited participation in the “so-called national blockade”.
“Comrades, this is the most successful blockade in the history of South Africa”, nevertheless claimed Julius Malema in front of his troops dressed in red, the color of the party, in Pretoria. Trade unionists had also joined the ranks.
“We are here to demand an end to load shedding and ask Ramaphosa to resign. And if he doesn’t, we will force him,” he said.
The government is “not doing anything for us,” 42-year-old EFF member Gift Boquopane told AFP, referring to the lack of jobs and the ever-rising cost of living.
A year before the 2024 general election, Cyril Ramaphosa faces growing discontent. For months, the 60 million South Africans have been without power for up to 12 hours a day. The continent’s leading industrial power is unable to produce enough electricity. The state-owned Eskom, heavily in debt, struggles with dilapidated and poorly maintained power plants, after years of corruption and mismanagement.
Load shedding was suspended on Sunday and Monday, for the first time since January.
Mr. Ramaphosa, 70, was reappointed in December to the presidency of the ANC, after having escaped an impeachment procedure, mired in a mysterious case of theft of large sums of cash in one of his properties. He is guaranteed a second term at the head of the country if the African National Congress (ANC) wins at the polls in 2024.
03/20/2023 19:46:35 – Pretoria (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
