Jacinta Zuma Compares Cyril Ramaphosa To Zimbabwean President After Army Deployment In Durban

The leader of the March and March Movement, Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, has launched a vicious attack against President Cyril Ramaphosa for using the military to suppress civic demonstrations in Durban. Ngobese-Zuma has made direct comparisons between Ramaphosa’s style of executive governance and that of Emmerson Mnangagwa, the president of Zimbabwe.

In her address to the demonstrators, e-hailing drivers, and local activists gathered along Durban’s commercial corridors, Ngobese-Zuma criticized the national executive for authorizing the deployment of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) under Operation Prosper. According to her, the widely recognized authoritarian tactics bring to mind the use of armored tactical units and armed troops to quell public demonstrations against issues such as illegal immigration and the loss of jobs in the gig economy. According to the Ngobese-Zuma lawmaker, President Ramaphosa is following in the footsteps of Zimbabwe’s President Mnangagwa, who also deploys military personnel to oversee domestic civil assemblies and police urban streets in an effort to suppress public dissent, disperse civilian marches, and contain political opposition.

The activist leader claims that the government’s decision to use military force during protests demonstrates a growing disconnection between the executive branch and the everyday struggles faced by ordinary South Africans. While the township residents called for tighter border enforcement, more government oversight, and protections for workers, she claimed that the state was using tactical security forces to shield criminal cartels and foreign nationals while intimidating local courier drivers and native workers. Instead of addressing the root causes of public anger—unmonitored border corridors, widespread illegal employment, and administrative failures at the Department of Home Affairs—the national leadership would prefer to criminalize civic activism and govern by state fear, according to Ngobese-Zuma.

Ngobese-Zuma rejected the presence of armed military cordons in KwaZulu-Natal and declared that the March and March Movement would continue to organize public marches and challenge government policies despite state security deployments.

She stressed that the movement will not back down from its demands for labor and migration reforms until South Africa completely applies them, and that the use of force by the executive branch will not deter citizens from exercising their right to assemble peacefully.

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