South Africa’s Democracy Under Threat – Mapisa-Nqakula

SOUTH Africa’s democracy is under threat from rioting and looting, but Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula believes the deployment of 25 000 troops on the ground will overcome the ‘counter-revolution’.

Speaking to the Joint Standing Committee on Defence (JSCD) on Sunday evening, Mapisa-Nqakula said the unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng was not an attempted coup or insurrection but “probably signs of counter-revolution, which is creeping in in the form of criminality and thuggery”.

She said coups and insurrections have leaders but no one has claimed responsibility for the unrest. “We have serious socio-economic issues in the country; we have a high rate of unemployment, we have poverty but all of those can never justify the kind of action which was taken in the past few days.” The Minister said it was strange that looters were going back to destroy infrastructure and attacking clinics and hospitals, hence her belief