JOHANNESBURG: Tens of thousands of protesters marched through South African cities on Friday demanding President Jacob Zuma’s resignation, as a second ratings agency downgraded the country’s debt to junk status.
Zuma’s sacking of respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan last week has fanned public anger, divisions within the ruling ANC party and a sharp decline in investor confidence in the country.
“Recent political events, including a major cabinet reshuffle, will weaken standards of governance and public finances,” the Fitch ratings agency predicted as it announced the downgrade.
The Standard & Poor’s agency had also downgraded South African sovereign debt to junk status after Zuma’s dramatic ministerial shake-up.
Zuma, who came to power in 2009, has been battered by a series of corruption scandals during his time in office, while the country has suffered record unemployment, slowing growth and stubborn racial inequality.
His removal of Gordhan unleashed a fresh bout of criticism, as many ordinary South Africans and international investors saw the former minister as a bulwark against corruption.
In the biggest political protests for several years, large crowds gathered in the capital Pretoria, the economic hub Johannesburg and coastal cities of Durban and Cape Town.
Several thousand people attended the Johannesburg protest organized by the opposition Democratic Alliance party, which hopes to make gains in 2019 elections under its leader Mmusi Maimane, 36.
“We want Zuma to fall. He is too corrupt. Real people are struggling. I voted for Nelson Mandela, but Maimane has a lot of integrity and he’s young,” protester Vanessa Michael, 54, from East Rand, told AFP.
Mabefw Malega, a 38-year-old undertaker who had traveled three hours from Limpopo province to march said “people just want Zuma gone.”
One young woman in a wheelchair held a banner that said “I love my country, not my government.”
Johannesburg was thronged with the DA’s signature blue while Luthuli House, the nerve center of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), was surrounded by its veteran anti-apartheid fighters, dressed in camouflage, in a show of loyalty to Zuma.
The ANC led the decades-long struggle against apartheid, and carried Nelson Mandela to power in the 1994 elections that ended white-minority rule.
But the party has lost popularity in recent years and slipped to 55 percent of the vote in last year’s local elections — its worst ever result.
Zuma this week appeared to have quelled a rebellion within the ANC despite senior party figures, including Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking out against Gordhan’s sacking.
The cabinet overhaul — which was announced in a midnight statement — cleared out many of Zuma’s critics and placed loyalists in key positions.
“Tensions within the ANC will mean that political energy will be absorbed by efforts to maintain party unity and fend off leadership challenges,” Fitch said in its statement.
“The agency believes that the cabinet reshuffle will further undermine the investment climate.”
Junk status was likely to increase the cost of the government’s debt and shrink public funds available for welfare, health, education and housing.
South Africa’s trade union federation Cosatu this week joined many anti-apartheid veterans, civil action groups and business leaders calling for the president to resign.
“We must move forward with the South Africa of our dreams — not South Africa that will enrich a few cronies,” Solly Mapaila, of the South African Communist Party, told the rally in Pretoria.
Zuma, 74, is due to step down as head of the ANC in December, and as president ahead of the 2019 general election.
He is seen as favoring his ex-wife, former African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, to succeed him.
Zuma has been accused of being in the sway of the wealthy Gupta business family, allegedly granting them influence over government appointments, contracts and state-owned businesses.
Friday’s marches were mainly peaceful, though police used stun grenades to disperse rival groups of protesters outside the Guptas’ main residence in Johannesburg.
Outside Cape Town, retired archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is in frail health, made an appearance to support the protests.
Parliament will vote on a motion of no confidence in the president on April 18, though he has easily survived previous such votes against him.
Anti-Zuma protests in S.Africa as economic woes mount
Anti-Zuma protests in S.Africa as economic woes mount
‘I admire Vision 2030’: Bangladesh’s new PM aims for stronger Saudi, GCC ties
- Saudi Arabia congratulates Tarique Rahman on assuming Bangladesh’s top office
- Relations between Bangladesh and Kingdom were formalized during his father’s rule
DHAKA: After 17 years in exile, Tarique Rahman has taken office as prime minister of Bangladesh, inheriting his parents’ political legacy and facing immediate economic and political challenges.
Rahman led his Bangladesh Nationalist Party to a landslide victory in the Feb. 12 general election, winning an absolute majority with 209 of 300 parliamentary seats and marking the party’s return to power after two decades.
The BNP was founded by his father, former President Ziaur Rahman, a 1971 Liberation War hero. After his assassination in 1981, Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, took over the party’s helm and served two full terms as prime minister — in 1991 and 2001.
Rahman and his cabinet, whose members were sworn in alongside him on Tuesday, take over from an interim administration which governed Bangladesh for 18 months after former premier Sheikh Hasina — the BNP’s archrival who ruled consecutively for 15 years — was toppled in the 2024 student-led uprising.
As he begins his term, the new prime minister’s first tasks will be to rebuild the economy — weakened by uncertainty during the interim administration — and to restore political stability. Relations with the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia and other GCC states, are also high on his agenda.
“Saudi Arabia is one of our long-standing friends,” Rahman told Arab News at his office in Dhaka, two days before his historic election win.
“I admire the Saudi Vision 2030, and I am sincerely looking forward to working with the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. BNP always had a great relationship with the Muslim world, especially GCC nations — UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman — and I look forward to working closely with GCC countries and their leadership to build a long-term trusting partnership with mutual interest,” Rahman said.
The Saudi government congratulated him on assuming the top office on Tuesday, wishing prosperity to the Bangladeshi people.
Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia established formal diplomatic relations in August 1975, and the first Bangladeshi ambassador presented his credentials in late 1976, after Rahman’s father rose to power. That year, Bangladesh also started sending laborers, engineers, doctors, and teachers to work in the Kingdom.
Today, more than 3 million Bangladeshis live and work in Saudi Arabia — the largest expat group in the Kingdom and the biggest Bangladeshi community outside the country.
“I recall that when my father, President Ziaur Rahman, was in office, bilateral relations between our two nations were initiated,” Rahman said. “During the tenure of my mother, the late Begum Khaleda Zia, as prime minister, those relations became even stronger.”
Over the decades, Saudi Arabia has not only emerged as the main destination for Bangladesh’s migrant workers but also one of its largest development and emergency aid donors.
Weeks after Rahman’s mother began her first term as prime minister in 1991, Bangladesh was struck by one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in its history. Riyadh was among the first who offered assistance, and Zia visited Saudi Arabia on her earliest foreign tour and performed Hajj in June 1991.
For Rahman, who had been living in London since 2008 and returned to Bangladesh in December — just days before his mother’s death — the Kingdom will also be one of the first countries he plans to visit.
“I would definitely like to visit Saudi Arabia early in my term,” he said. “Personally, I also wish to visit the holy mosque, Al-Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah, to perform Umrah.”
