Mass shutdown looming
ON THE eve of the State of the Nation Address (Sona) by President Cyril Ramaphosa on February 9, Julius Malema has announced that the EFF would lead the “mother of all protests” on March 20.
The march to the Union Buildings is set to be a massive, people-driven call for the removal of the incumbent president, who is materially failing the nation. The march is also a long-inthe-making national protest against the long-life load shedding that is plunging South Africa into a state of disaster.
“Cyril Ramaphosa must step aside with immediate effect,” Malema said at Sunday’s press conference.
The EFF-led march is not child’s play for this young radical political party, which unlike many other political formations and groupings, has both the might and the muscle to bring the country to a standstill.
March 20, which Malema describes as a national day of action, will see a strong display of people’s power and outrage against a government whose word is no longer the lingo of the common man and woman of South Africa.
With the growing disdain towards, and neglect of, ordinary South African citizens in recent years, the ANC has moved from being a party for and of the people, to a self-serving, selfenriching government that is today the very antithesis of people’s power.
It is a tragic trajectory for this once noble liberation movement. Scenes of thousands and thousands of Sri Lankan citizens on the streets of their long-suffering nation in March 2022 remind us of the power and fury of a people. Citizens protested en masse against the president’s mismanagement of the economy, misrule, and corruption.
The nation had been plagued by serious petrol shortages and daily electricity outages. In the end, people’s power won, although it was shortlived, and the president of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksathe, was forced to resign.
Malema is clear that Ramaphosa must resign and that load shedding must end. Few can argue with Malema’s assessment of Ramaphosa as a “useless” and “incompetent” president who has taken South Africa into “the dark ages” through his inability to deal with the disabling and crippling effect of load shedding.
“Whether Ramaphosa likes it or not,” Malema said, “he is a mess for this country.”
The ANC has plunged South Africa into a state of disaster. The EFF’s march will shut down a nation that has been summarily collapsed by the ANC, over many years, and which has now been brought to a total standstill by the Ramaphosa administration.
There is much merit in Malema’s clarion call for a national shutdown. South Africans have tolerated far too much and, like the people of Sri Lanka, are saying “enough is enough”.
Malema is calling for accountability while Ramaphosa’s own party has failed to hold him accountable for possible flagrant violations of the South African law and Constitution.
Malema said at Sunday’s press conference: “It’s not me but a judge who said he has a case to answer for having undeclared dollars at his farm.”
February’s Sona is likely to be yet another pit of empty keystone promises from a president who seems to be crumbling rather than fixing party and state. ANC MPs will cheer for their man, nonetheless. Ramaphosa has urged the ANC to start the election campaign early. It is going to be a hard sell for those who don their smiley-face ANC regalia and try to sell long expired goods to a weary electorate.
Ramaphosa says if the ANC does not renew, it will perish. Perhaps the perishing of the ANC is critical if the state of the nation is to be truly renewed.
It is significant that the EFF-led “shut down the nation” march is being held one day before the 63rd anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre, when 69 black South Africans who were protesting peacefully against racist pass laws were killed by apartheid’s policemen.
Malema has been vocal that the march will go ahead irrespective of any attempts or threats to stop it.
He said: “Bring your state power, we will bring our mass power … like Sharpeville, we are not afraid of the state power, let the state come with its power, we will come with mass power.”
Malema said “freedom is coming” after March 20.
March 20 is set to be a day of reckoning in a people vs the president historical protest. It may well be remembered as the true Sona of 2023.