New oppressor walks together with the poor

Supporters of various organisations during the People’s March in Defence of Our Sovereignty and Democratic Gains at Mary Fitzgerald Square on March 21, 2026. Picture: Gallo Images/Luba Lesolle On Saturday, the ANC took to the streets of Joburg, Durban, Cape Town and East London. This was under the banner of the “People’s March: In Defence of Our Sovereignty and Democratic Gains”.

The slogans were bold: #SAWillNotBeBullied, #DefendOurSovereignty. The target was, however, vague: “External bullying”, foreign critics, unnamed forces seeking to undermine the nation. But to understand why the ANC must summon the nation against vague foreign threats, one must first understand the current political landscape.

The ANC entered the government of national unity in 2024, having lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994. This electoral decline reflects deeper trends: 32 years of governance have produced undeniable failures in service delivery, economic management and institutional integrity. Unemployment remains endemic.

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Infrastructure deteriorates. Crime persists. Corruption, despite periodic anti-graft campaigns, continues unabated.

It is against this backdrop that the march must be understood. First, the ANC wants to divert attention from being held accountable for corruption. When ANC leaders are exposed for corruption, they will divert attention by claiming they are being attacked not because of their actions, but because they defend the country’s sovereignty.

They become targets of a foreign agenda, victims of forces that want to see South Africa fail or champions against white monopoly capital. The march was also an attempt to manufacture national unity around a threat that is, at best, peripheral to most South Africans’ lived experience. Foreign criticism of South African policy, whether regarding land reform, human rights, or Iran and Palestine, does not supersede the ANC’s comprehensive failure to govern and hold itself accountable.

After three decades in power, the party presides over rampant looting, unemployment at catastrophic levels, infrastructure in advanced decay, service delivery in collapse, and a citizenry abandoned to crime and violence. These are not man-made criticisms by “agent provocateurs”, they are the logical outcome of corrupted cadre deployment, looting of state coffers, and institutional hollowing out. They had an internal party function. In an era of diminished resources and eroding support, mass mobilisation reinforces organisational cohesion.

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