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South Africa’s election campaign has taken a populist turn, with candidates proposing the death penalty and the expulsion of foreigners to an electorate tired of crime, unemployment and a sense of national malaise.
A group of opposition parties, often supporters of identity politics or anti-immigration sentiment, have emerged ahead of the May 29 vote, the first since 1994 in which the African National Congress’s overall majority is under threat.
Jacob Zuma, the former president, posted a video on TikTok this week in which he said there was “no crime” in South Africa “before the arrival of foreign nationals.” He had previously proposed that teenage mothers be sent to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela had spent years in prison, to complete their studies.
In December, Zuma launched a new party, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), named after the disbanded armed wing of the ANC. The party, which has taken up the banner of radical economic transformation, is widely seen as appealing to chauvinist sentiment among the Zulus, the country’s largest ethnic group.
Separately, the Patriotic Alliance, which often uses the slogan anti-immigration let them gomeaning “they must go” in Zulu – was aimed primarily at communities who identify as “coloured”, while the Freedom Front Plus, a right-wing Afrikaner party, supported CapeXit, the independence of the Western Cape from the rest of the South Africa.
“The rise of xenophobic and patriarchal politics arises from the manipulation of black political disillusionment,” said Joel Modiri, an associate professor at the University of Pretoria.
Africa’s most industrialized nation now hosts more migrants than any other country on the continent. Xenophobia is a persistent problem in the townships where foreign nationals from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere have become the scapegoats for chronic unemployment, now at 32%.
Outside the heavily boarded-up window of a Somali-run kiosk in Soweto, known as a spaza shop, Siphiwe Tyali, a local resident, said foreign-owned businesses were often attacked. “We go into spaces and loot them instead of fighting the government, which is not nice,” she said. “People are just trying to make a living.”
Busisiwe Seabe, a writer and activist, said political parties were stirring up resentment. “There is a big problem with populism in South Africa right now,” he said, adding that there has been a partial fracturing of the political system along identity lines.
“The Zulus will fight the Xhosa tribe, the Venda, the Sothos and so on,” he said. “This is becoming even more evident with the rise of Jacob Zuma’s MK party.”
South Africa’s electoral commission on Thursday banned Zuma from running for parliament based on his 2021 criminal conviction for contempt of court.
Calls for the death penalty arose on a popular level as a reaction to rampant crime, Seabe said. “The new parties are riding the issue of the death penalty because they think that by supporting it they will get more votes.”
Speaking at a conference in Cape Town last month, the brash and outspoken leader of the Patriotic Alliance, Gayton McKenzie, said: “I will halve youth unemployment by mass deporting all these illegal aliens so that….” . . our young people should find jobs.”
He invoked South Africa’s hated apartheid dompas laws, stating that foreigners should always carry identification documents, as black South Africans were once required to do.
Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA party, known for a tough stance on immigration during his time as mayor of Johannesburg, also released a manifesto last week that would make it easier for illegal immigrants to move.
But his platform notably avoided populist rhetoric, explicitly condemned xenophobia and called for simplifying official entry procedures into the country, particularly for skilled workers.
“We want the people of the world to come to South Africa, but they must do so by following our laws,” the manifesto states.
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, a jurist, said the core of the ANC continues to champion progressive values, even if some of its elements have flirted with more radical rhetoric.
“When people say we are witnessing the last days of the ANC, who will defend these pillars of non-tribalism, non-racism, pan-Africanism and internationalism?” she asked. “What kind of society do we have in mind if we have no one to defend these values?”