"Perfect Storm" of Pandemic, Poverty & Jailing Ex-President Unleashes Mass Protest in South Africa
by webdev@democracynow.org (Democracy Now!) from Democracy Now! on (#5M7S6)
We go to South Africa, where more than 70 are dead and at least 3,000 people have been arrested since demonstrations erupted after former President Jacob Zuma began his 15-month jail sentence for refusing to testify in a corruption probe. Protesters also expressed frustration with entrenched poverty and inequity as South Africa battles a devastating wave of COVID-19. This was really a perfect storm that has built up," says Sithembile Mbete, a senior lecturer in political sciences at the University of Pretoria in Johannesburg. The protests and the unrest has stopped being about former President Zuma and has become more about the socioeconomic conditions that people find themselves in and the problems of hunger."