Every anti-Zuma march taking place around South Africa on Friday – and what it needs to be successful
Protesting on 7 April will make little difference unless South Africans are able to show up en masse, warns Nomura’s Peter Attard Montalto.
Numerous marches and events are set to take place around the country on Friday, mainly calling for president Jacob Zuma to step down following his latest Cabinet reshuffle which included the axing of finance minister, Pravin Gordhan.
“We think the role of civil society organisations are overplayed given limited impact on the internal workings of the ANC. Ultimately the reversal that was Nene-gate was caused by a market shock that fed through to the ANC via business leaders connected to the party,” Attard Montalto said in a report.
“That market shock has not happened really this time to such a degree. Indeed, much of the protest action appears small, though the real test will be this Friday’s marches to the Union Buildings.”
However Attard Montalto and other analysts believe that the protests could bring about a change if they reach what is known as the “Brazil level”. This is in reference to the number of protesters (approximately 500,000) that took to the streets protest against government in Brazil.
He also stressed the importance of differentiating between the protest movements which are party political, and ones outside the ANC, and are therefore more independent.
“SaveSA, for instance, should more appropriately be termed ‘Save the ANC’ and is a factional movement within the ANC – we believe that looks as its main goal not to indeed save the country but to save the party from electoral defeat in the long run.”
“We struggle to find Black-led, non-party political, truly independent protest movements in South Africa that are of any decent size. This is partly, again, why we see the chances of Zumxit as contained. We believe that protest movements that are factional within the ANC can too easily be dismissed by the Zuma faction within the ANC,” Attard Montalto said.
Protest action was threatened against president Zuma when he removed former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in 2015, with the threat being that 1 million South Africans would take to the streets.
Barely 100,000 turned up. According to Attard Montalto, 1 million protesters in the streets would cause the ANC to take notice, and could change forecasts for South Africa’s political year ahead.
BusinessTech has updated the list of marches taking place around the country on 7 April.
Save South Africa (non-aligned march) (Pretoria)
Organisations that have pledged support for the protest action are Save South Africa, Corruption Watch, Treatment Action Campaign, Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, Lawyers for Human Rights, Section27, Johannesburg Against Injustice and the National Religious Leaders’ Council.
#savesa #endstatecapture #peoplesmarch @eNCA @SABCNewsOnline @Radio702 @ewnupdates @SECTION27news pic.twitter.com/L2bLqnb9fJ
— Save South Africa (@_SaveSA) April 6, 2017
South African Communist Party (Pretoria)
The South African Communist Party (SACP) has confirmed that it will be staging a march from Marabastad at 10am to the National Treasury offices in the city centre where it plans to hand over a memorandum of demands.
The SACP members will then join the People’s March.
SA1st Forum (Cape Town)
- The SA1st Forum has agreed to collaborate with SaveSA movement on Friday.
- In addition it plans to hold a holding hands’ picket outside the gates of Parliament at 12pm.
- At 2pm, a memorial service for the late Ahmed Kathrada will be held at St. George’s Cathedral where Pravin Gordhan will be the keynote speaker.
- At 17:00, there will be a set-up of Vukani Mzansi tent camp to conduct a 48 hour picket.
Democratic Alliance (Johannesburg)
The Democratic Alliance has amended its planned route for its “March for Change” following reported threats of violence from the ANC’s Youth League, as well as certain branches within the ANC.
The party confirmed that changes to the route had to be made following consultations with the SAPS who confirmed that it could not offer full protection on the old route.
The March for Change will now begin at the Westgate Transport Hub at 10h00 on Friday morning, and will end at Mary Fitzgerald Square, Johannesburg.
BREAKING: We call on all South Africans to join this Friday’s March for Change – @MmusiMaimanehttps://t.co/iaAuJs1Tfh #NoConfidence pic.twitter.com/5xcoXHBxHJ
— Democratic Alliance (@Our_DA) April 3, 2017
Democratic Alliance (Durban)
Join us as we March together for South Africa! #NoConfidence #KZN pic.twitter.com/SmogxG8mCz
— DA KZN (@DA_KZN) April 4, 2017
Save South Africa (Pretoria)
(Ongoing occupation of Church Square Pretoria from Monday, 3 April)
Join us at Church square this week! We will be camping and occupying al week. join us and #occupychurchsquare pic.twitter.com/ujY3xHxhxQ
— Save South Africa (@_SaveSA) April 3, 2017
Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse – OUTA (Various)
— OUTA (@OUTASA) April 5, 2017
Multi-party day of action (Pretoria)
South Africa’s biggest opposition parties held a joint meeting on Monday, 3 April, in Johannesburg following the axing of Gordhan. The meeting was attended by the DA (Mmusi Maimane), EFF (Godrich Gardee and Dali Mpofu), UDM (Bantu Holomisa), COPE (Mosiuoa Lekota), IFP (Mangaqa Mncwango) and ACDP (Kenneth Meshoe).
“It was agreed that as opposition parties, we will start the process of mobilising their structures from across the country for a National Day of Action to the Union Buildings. We are planning to have this mass action event as soon as possible,” the group said in a statement.
“We will also be engaging civil society formations and other political parties to mobilise in order to support the people’s National Day of Action to the Union Buildings, so that we are united and not fractured in our call to save our country in the short-term.”
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