South Africa: Podcast - Jacob Zuma's Secret Election Weapon

Funda ngesiZuluJune 30 came and went, and the chaos many feared never arrived. On this week's Sharp Sharp, Rob Rose and Zukile Majova, joining from Mount Frere in the Eastern Cape, dig into why. Then they go deep on a question far bigger than one deadline: who is actually behind March and March, and who stands to gain from it.

Zuks lays out the three names driving the movement. Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, the former Vuma FM broadcaster whose movement grew directly out of a contract dispute with an ANC MEC over her on-air comments about immigrants. Ngizwe Mchunu, the former Ukhozi FM presenter and self-declared president of the AmaBhinca Nation, previously charged over the July 2021 unrest. And Nkosikhona Ndabandaba, the Shaka iLembe actor who leads the disciplined, king-endorsed Amabutho regiments, the structure that has kept the marches from spiralling into violence.

But the real story, Zuks argues, is what sits underneath all three. March and March's own treasurer ran on Jacob Zuma's MK Party national election list in 2024. Ngobese-Zuma has publicly endorsed MK at recent rallies. And with the ANC facing a genuine threat of losing the eThekwini Metro, worth over sixty billion rand, in November's local government elections, the movement looks less like grassroots civic anger and more like a political weapon being assembled in plain sight.

Rob and Zuks also tackle the economics head on. Companies in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng have replaced foreign workers on the spot under pressure from marchers, which Zuks acknowledges makes the "immigrants are taking our jobs" argument feel real on the ground. But he pushes back hard on the deeper cause. An economy growing below one percent, damaged since the Zuma era itself, cannot create jobs regardless of who is or isn't in the country. Chasing out immigrants, he argues, will not fix that.

They close on a lighter note with South Africa's historic World Cup run and the giant killings that have defined this tournament, before returning to a sobering final thought. The people organising these marches are already describing them as a new form of national unity.

Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Read the original article on Scrolla.