To reach audiences susceptible to authoritarian messaging, defenders of democracy must adapt - creating authentic, locally rooted, emotionally resonant content that can compete on the same terrain.

When former president Jacob Zuma met Burkina Faso's coup leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, last week, he did more than pose for a symbolic photograph.

He closed the loop on an emergent narrative of authoritarian aspiration developing within South Africa's political imagination and across the African continent. According to Zuma, as relayed by the Burkina Faso presidency, the main purpose of the meeting with Traoré was to chart a way forward "together to continue the struggle for the liberation of Africa".

Zuma was accompanied by his daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla - a central figure in pro-Russian online networks and one of the prime influencers in the #IStandWithRussia campaign, which she amplified from Russia around the time of that country's invasion of Ukraine. The image of the two men together - one a former democratic president turned alleged populist insurgent, the other a 37-year-old military ruler hailed in some circles as Africa's "strongman of renewal" - trended across South African X (formerly Twitter).

Former South African President Jacob Zuma met...