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President Zuma

Johannesburg. – Tens of thousands of protesters marched through South African cities on Friday in an opposition-organised demonstration, as a second ratings agency downgraded the country’s debt to junk status.

Zuma’s sacking of finance minister Pravin Gordhan last week has fanned 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.

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 organised by the opposition Democratic Alliance party, which hopes to make gains in 2019 elections under its leader Mmusi Maimane, 36.

Johannesburg was thronged with the DA’s signature blue while Luthuli House, the nerve centre 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. – AFP.