South Africa ‘national shutdown’: What has sparked the anti-government protests?

South Africa is bracing for nationwide protests called by an opposition party in a bid to unseat president Cyril Ramaphosa.

Julius Malema, leader of the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, called on workers across the country to down tools in a “national shutdown”.

The protests are against rolling power outages being overseen by embattled state utility company Eskom and blamed on ageing energy infrastructure and aim to drive the leader of the African National Congress (ANC) from power.

Mr Malema declared ahead of the protests that “no one can stop a revolution” as he called on his supporters to occupy the streets in outrage at alleged corruption and poor public services, urging activists to remain peaceful while also advising them to “defend themselves from anyone who provokes them with violence”.

The EFF is South Africa’s third-largest party, is allied with a number of anti-ANC unions and draws its primary support from black South Africans who feel left behind by the governing party, which has ruled since 1994 and the end of the apartheid era.

A spokesman for Mr Ramaphosa said on Sunday: “As much as the right to protest is guaranteed and protected under our constitution, equally that right is not absolute, and that right is not a ticket to any form of anarchy or violence.”

In anticipation of potential hostilities, the country’s parliament issued a statement on Sunday declaring that the South African military would deploy 3,474 troops as an additional peacekeeping force to support local police and guard government buildings and key infrastructure for a month until 17 April.

Security forces said on Monday that 87 people had already been arrested over the protests.

Of that total, 41 arrests were made in Gauteng, the province that includes the capital city Pretoria and Johannesburg, 29 in were in North West province and 15 in Free State, according to national intelligence body NatJOINTS, which added that there have been arrests in other provinces including Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape.

“Law enforcement officers are on high alert and will continue to prevent and combat any acts of criminality,” NatJOINTS said.

The ANC insisted that businesses would be open as usual on Monday and ordered civil servants to report to their desks but the show of force is being seen as an effort to avoid a repeat of the violent scenes that erupted two years ago following the imprisonment of Mr Ramaphosa’s predecessor Jacob Zuma.

open image in gallery

More than 350 people were killed in the looting and organised sabotage that followed the jailing of Mr Zuma after he was found guilty of committing contempt of court in 2021.

Tebello Mosikili, the country’s deputy national police commissioner and chair of a joint security forces co-ordination committee, had promised last week that “there will be no national shutdown… we learnt our lesson in 2021”.

She added: “Everything from businesses to services will be fully functional. We’re not going to allow lawlessness and acts of criminality.”

Courts in Cape Town and Johannesburg meanwhile banned EFF demonstrators from blocking roads and businesses in response to a legal action launched by Democratic Alliance, the country’s second-largest political party.

International airports will remain open in those cities on Monday and in Durban, although a Toyota manufacturing plant in the latter location will be closed after it became a focal point for violence during the 2021 unrest.

The scene in Pretoria was largely peaceful on Monday morning, with some businesses shuttered and EFF supporters, wearing red, gathering in the city’s Church Square to march, sing and chant.

But Carl Neilhaus, a former ANC member expelled from the party and now representing his own African Radical Economic Transformation Alliance, compared the heavy police presence on the streets to the 1976 Soweta uprising and issued a strong warning to Mr Ramaphosa.

“Those very security services that you may want to use against the people may turn against you – and be careful, because they may very well be the ones who will come into the Union buildings, pull you out of your chair, take you down the road to Kgosi Mampuru prison and put you where you belong,” he said.

Despite the animosity, the ANC is widely expected to lose its majority at next year’s elections and could come to rely on the EFF as a coalition partner, a decade after the movement broke its ties with the governing party.