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South African authorities were preparing for a “national shutdown” of the economy which has been called for Monday by the radical opposition Economic Freedom Fighters in a bid to unseat President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Police have called up reserves and reinforced security around government buildings and key infrastructure hubs ahead of a planned protest by the country’s third-biggest party, in an effort to avoid a repeat of South Africa’s worst post-apartheid violence two years ago.
Julius Malema, the EFF’s firebrand leader, said ahead of the day of action that “no one can stop a revolution” as he called on his supporters to occupy the streets to demand an end to the country’s rolling blackouts and Ramaphosa’s removal.
The government said business would continue as usual on Monday — the day before a national public holiday — but the show of force reflects how the ruling African National Congress remains haunted by the 2021 violence that caught police off guard and resulted in hundreds of deaths.
“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,” Ramaphosa’s spokesperson said on Sunday.
Malema’s party, which broke from the ANC a decade ago, has allied with ANC-opposed unions in the shutdown attempt. The EFF has said protesters should be peaceful but also “defend themselves from anyone who provokes them with violence”.
More than 350 people were killed in the looting and organised sabotage that followed the imprisonment of Jacob Zuma, the former president, for contempt of court in 2021. Ramaphosa’s government has admitted intelligence failures over the violence, which was put down with a massive military deployment. Zuma was eventually released.
Tebello Mosikili, South Africa’s deputy national police commissioner and chair of a joint security forces co-ordination committee, said last week that “there will be no national shutdown . . . we learnt our lesson in 2021”.
“Everything from businesses to services will be fully functional . . . We’re not going to allow lawlessness and acts of criminality,” she added.
Civil servants have been ordered to report to work as normal on Monday, while the operator of Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg’s international airports has said they will remain open.
Courts in Johannesburg and Cape Town have barred Malema’s party from blocking roads or businesses, after legal action by the main opposition Democratic Alliance.
A blow against the shutdown plan has come from South Africa’s minibus taxi industry, which is critical to transporting workers. The country’s national taxi council said its members would operate as normal on Monday.
However, some businesses have signalled they could close for the day, such as Toyota’s car plant in Durban, the city that was the centre of the 2021 unrest.
Despite the planned shutdown, Malema is viewed as a likely coalition partner for the ANC if it loses its majority in national elections next year, as polls indicate will happen for the first time since 1994.
Meanwhile, embattled state power monopoly Eskom on Sunday suspended the rolling blackouts for the first time this year, citing a recovery in generation capacity despite a crisis in its ageing power stations. It will reinstate the power cuts on Monday but at a lower level than the outages reached in recent weeks.
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