Ramaphosa says unrest is ‘co-ordinated, well-planned attack’ on democracy

President Cyril Ramaphosa said South African’s young democracy had been targeted in “a deliberate, co-ordinated and well-planned attack” as the worst violence since the end of apartheid this week saw security forces move in to restore order on Friday. 

Africa’s most industrialised economy is reeling from scenes of anarchy in Gauteng, the economic hub, and KwaZulu-Natal this week that left over 200 dead, wrecked businesses and imperilled the country’s vaccine rollout.

In a national address on Friday Ramaphosa said that the looting was a “smokescreen” for deliberate sabotage “intended to cripple the economy, cause social instability and severely weaken — or even dislodge — the democratic state”.

The comments underline how close South Africa came to the brink after unrest over the imprisonment of Jacob Zuma, the former president, this month spiralled into mass rioting.

“Using the pretext of a political grievance, those behind these acts have sought to provoke a popular insurrection among our people,” Ramaphosa said. 

“This attempted insurrection has failed to gain popular support . . . South Africans have rejected it and have stood up in defence of our hard-won democracy,” he said, promising that “those who lit the flame” would be caught.

On Wednesday, the presidency said one of 12 suspected key instigators had been taken into custody. The domestic spy agency is investigating whether some of its own former agents had orchestrated violence in KwaZulu-Natal out of loyalty to Zuma. “We will not allow anyone to destabilise our country and get away with it,” Ramaphosa said on Friday.

Ramaphosa’s government is, however, under heavy fire over what analysts have said were failures to act on warnings of unrest after Zuma was jailed last week. Police often stood by while looters attacked supermarkets and other businesses this week. The president admitted on Friday that the government had been “poorly prepared.”

Local media have reported that members of the ANC sought to make the country ungovernable in revenge for Zuma’s jailing, including through the co-ordination of attacks through social media and by leveraging their ties to former security agents loyal to the ex-president.

“It will not surprise me if there are also elements of people in the ANC [seeking] to undermine and weaken President Ramaphosa’s position,” said Jasmine Opperman, a security analyst.

The economic damage in Durban, Africa’s biggest shipping port, is estimated at more than R20bn ($1.4bn) with tens of thousands of jobs in danger, according to the city’s chamber of commerce. Arson has wrecked significant infrastructure in the city, including distribution warehouses, chemical works and a drug manufacturer.

This week the government increased an initial military deployment to 25,000 soldiers and reserves, 10 times the original number, as food and fuel shortages loomed.

On Friday armoured cars were patrolling Durban’s suburbs and townships, while the main N3 motorway from Johannesburg to the city reopened.

Ramaphosa conceded that the police force and intelligence services “could have done better” but said they had been overwhelmed. He said earlier on Friday that South Africa’s reputation as an investment destination had been “severely dented” by the unrest.

South Africa’s economy was already stagnant before the pandemic. “We’ve really been taken backwards on our path to economic recovery,” Ramaphosa said.