Want to end Zimbabwean immigration into South Africa? Don’t vote for the ANC

(President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with President Emmerson Mnangagwa, President of Zimbabwe on the margins of the 2nd day of the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of African in Ethiopia. 11/02/2019 Kopano Tlape GCIS)

By Tendekai Mawokomatanda ‘27

South Africa has an immigration issue — not its own, but one allowed by the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Millions of Zimbabweans have fled their nation's political oppression and economic collapse to find refuge and optimism in South Africa. This has exacerbated social tensions, xenophobic violence, and pressures on public services. Yet instead of addressing the root cause in Harare, the ANC has chosen to ignore it. By shielding and supporting Zimbabwe’s authoritarian Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) regime, the ANC has helped create the very conditions driving Zimbabweans across the Limpopo. The uncomfortable truth is that if South Africans genuinely want to stem the tide of Zimbabwean immigration, they must reject the ANC at the polls. A vote against the ANC is a vote to stop enabling tyranny next door, and stop the flood of massive immigration.

Zimbabwe’s implosion did not happen overnight. Once known as Africa’s breadbasket, Zimbabwe was driven into the ground by decades of gross mismanagement and authoritarian rule under ZANU-PF. Between 2000 and 2008, the nation's economy went into freefall – GDP was slashed by nearly half, the biggest economic slump during peacetime ever recorded. Wild hyperinflation hit a high of 231 million percent in, practically rendering the Zimbabwean dollar valueless. Over 72% of Zimbabweans were living in poverty by that time, and infrastructures and basic services disintegrated. The political atmosphere was no healthier: elections were systematically rigged or brutally suppressed, like the notorious 2008 presidential runoff that was universally reviled as fraudulent. It is little surprise that under such conditions, millions of Zimbabweans fled abroad in the 2000s, and South Africa was the destination of choice.

Zimbabwe is still in crisis today. Under President Emmerson Mnangagwa – President Robert Mugabe's successor within the same party – human rights and the economy are no better. As of 2023, Zimbabwe inflation had jumped back into triple figures, unemployment spiked (youth unemployment is estimated at around 90%), and dissent against the political leadership is being dealt with by authorities through detention, harassment and violence.

Others sell their belongings to finance such a journey south, by bus or on foot, across the border. Smugglers charge enormous amounts for transport, and migrants risk drowning, animal attacks, and robbery by criminal gangs along the route.

(Refugees from Zimbabwe wade across the crocodile-infested Limpopo river in search of safety on the South African side. Photograph: John Moore/Getty)

Once in South Africa, Zimbabwean migrants face new hardships. Lacking proper documentation, many struggle to find formal employment or access services. Still, they keep coming, because staying in Zimbabwe is often not a viable option. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become home to a massive Zimbabwean diaspora. Precise numbers are hard to come by due to irregular migration, but credible estimates range from at least one million to as many as three million Zimbabweans residing in South Africa. South Africa's 2022 census counted just over 1.01 million Zimbabwean-born residents, far and away the largest source of immigrants (45.5% of the country's foreign born). The figure is likely higher, as many migrants are illegal and hence not included in the count. This stream includes not just legally admitted immigrants – such as those on work visas or the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (a short-term visa program that has granted temporary legal status to approximately 180,000 Zimbabweans) – but also illegal immigrants who climbed over the border fence or overstayed their visas. It also includes thousands of asylum applicants who have applied for refugee claims, although South Africa's refugee system is jammed and backed up.

Trend of Zimbabwe population in South Africa Source: UNDP (2010)

Zimbabweans are not leaving because they prefer to, but because years of ZANU-PF's catastrophic governance have given them no alternative. The people of Zimbabwe are escaping economic destruction and political repression.

ANC Solidarity or Complicity?

Through all of Zimbabwe’s turmoil, the African National Congress has behaved less like a responsible regional leader and more like an enabler of Zimbabwe’s oppressors. The ANC has responded to its northern neighbour using a policy of "liberation movement solidarity": fidelity to ZANU-PF as a sister party of the anti-colonial cause, above any respect for democratic norms or human rights. This turns a blind eye to ZANU-PF's atrocities and actively provides it with political legitimacy and material support. Time and again, as Zimbabwe plunged into crisis, the ANC chose “quiet diplomacy” or outright cheerleading for ZANU-PF, rather than standing up for Zimbabweans.

This complicity has a long history. In 2008, as Zimbabwe descended into post-election violence and economic freefall, South African President Thabo Mbeki notoriously insisted there was “no crisis” in Zimbabwe. President Mbeki’s denial sent a clear signal: the ANC would not lift a finger to ease the political situation in Zimbabwe.

(Thabo Mbeki, left, and Robert Mugabe held an hour-long meeting in Harare)

Fast-forward to the 2010s and 2020s, and the pattern continues. In 2011, Gwede Mantashe, a seasoned ANC leader and former secretary-general of the, attended ZANU-PF’s annual conference and delivered a jaw-dropping message: he offered the ANC’s help to ZANU-PF in formulating “strategies” to win the next Zimbabwe elections. In other words, the ANC’s top leadership openly pledged to assist Zimbabwe’s ruling party – the very architects of Zimbabwe’s crisis – in entrenching their power. As Zimbabwe’s opposition fumed at this partisan interference, Mantashe was unrepentant. The ANC, he implied, stood firmly with “their comrades” in ZANU-PF, come what may.

(ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe gestures during a media briefing at the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg April 6, 2009. (Siphiwe Sibeko/Courtesy Reuters)

Mantashe’s stance was no anomaly. Successive ANC leaders have parroted ZANU-PF’s propaganda and shielded it from criticism. Just recently, in August 2023, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula sparked outrage by praising Zimbabwe’s disputed election results. Zimbabwe’s 2023 general election was marred by credible allegations of fraud and voter intimidation, to the point that even the regional SADC observer mission expressed alarm. Yet Mbalula “celebrated” President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s victory, gushing on social media about the ZANU-PF rally crowds as a “sea of people.” He “openly praised Zimbabwe’s ruling party ZANU-PF, and celebrated Mnangagwa’s re-election” – a result widely seen as illegitimate. When South African opposition leaders like Mmusi Maimane blasted him – Maimane branded Mbalula as "delusional to praise ZANU-PF and legitimize their dictatorship". In response, Mbalula stated quite clearly, "As the ANC we will not agree… that Zimbabwe must be turned" and assured the ANC "will not… turn against its long-time ally.

These claims have come from the highest levels of leadership as well. President Cyril Ramaphosa, to his credit, has continued the ANC tradition of coddling Zimbabwe's leaders. After Zimbabwe’s flawed 2023 election, Ramaphosa hurried to extend his congratulations to Mnangagwa, wishing him and the people of Zimbabwe well on his upcoming term – a polite diplomatic gesture that nevertheless conferred legitimacy on a tainted vote. The ANC government under Ramaphosa has always avoided any direct criticism of Zimbabwe’s human rights abuses or crackdowns on opposition.

In April 2025, ANC Youth League president Collen Malatji led a delegationof ANC Youth League members on a controversial visit to Harare. Malatji was recorded saying to a group of people at Harare airport that "Zimbabwe is our home" and repeating ZANU-PF's talking point that any narrative of crisis in Zimbabwe was fabricated by hostile Western media. "We were told that there's a protest here, we never saw any protest. It was Western media-based," Malatji scoffed. Meanwhile, he applauded Zimbabwe and South Africa's common struggle to "take back our land" and called for Africans to be ready to endure poverty rather than bowing to Western pressure. The message might well have been written by ZANU-PF's own spin doctors — certainly, ZANU-PF's official spokesperson greeted Malatji as a comrade and hailed the "communion between the youth leagues" of the two parties. In effect, the ANC Youth League was running an election campaign in support of ZANU-PF's hold on power, giving the gloss of regional solidarity to a regime that has impoverished and brutalized its people.

(*African National Congress (ANC) Youth League president Collen Malatji shared pictures with President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa. Image: Thlologelo Collen Malatji/X)*

The ANC’s uncritical embrace of ZANU-PF is not just cringe-worthy politics; it has concrete consequences. By propping up Zimbabwe’s authoritarians, the ANC has helped prolong Zimbabwe’s agony and thus propel even more refugees and migrants into South Africa. Every time the ANC cheers a rigged election in Zimbabwe, or blocks international censure of Harare’s abuses, it sends a signal to ZANU-PF that there is no real pressure to reform. The result: ZANU-PF clings to power, Zimbabwe’s downward spiral continues, and ordinary Zimbabweans continue to pack their bags for the “promised land” to the south.

South Africa Feels the Strain

The consequences of Zimbabwe’s collapse – and the ANC’s enabling of it – are being felt acutely on South African soil. While the ANC is celebrating "comrades" in Harare, South African communities are receiving the influx of Zimbabwean migrants with little help from Pretoria. This has created resentment among many outraged South Africans, especially in poor communities where competition for jobs and services is fierce. The narrative – enthusiastically blown out of proportion by opportunistic demagogues – is that foreigners are "stealing jobs," filling public hospitals and schools, and perpetrating crime. True, immigrants perform jobs numerous South Africans shun, and Zimbabwean professionals (doctors, teachers) have enriched South Africa’s workforce. But with 33% unemployment and endemic poverty in South Africa, blaming the foreigners is easier than addressing system failures.

As it turned out, xenophobic violence did not cease in 2008. It flared upagain in 2015 (primarily in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal) and again in 2019, with foreign-owned enterprises attacked and foreigners beaten. Elvis Nyathi, a 43-year-old Zimbabwean living in Diepsloot, was beaten and burned to deathby a mob after unemployed South Africans went door-to-door harassing foreigners. Nyathi’s name became a hashtag and rallying cry — a symbol of both the vulnerability of migrants and the boiling anger in some communities. The Economist indicated that vigilante groups, with flags such as "Operation Dudula,"have gained disturbing speed, and that "one in eight South Africans" admits to having engaged in violence against foreigners. Think about this: 12% of South Africans openly tellus they've been involved in attacking immigrants. This is a crisis of social cohesion, one that is being propelled in large measure by the uncontrolled flow from Zimbabwe.

(Elvis Nyathi burnt remains on Diepsloot road)

It is time to say so: Xenophobic violence is the responsibility of the perpetrators and the authorities who all too often fail to act to prevent it. Nothing justifies murdering a man as did Elvis Nyathi or breaking into a Somali-owned spaza shop. South Africa's leadership should be fighting xenophobia with the same intensity that they profess for fighting against racism. But while the ANC has tended to be more interested in denying or downplaying such xenophobic attacks — perhaps because it is embarrassing, or because it does not want to recognize the causality between the exodus from Zimbabwe and its own policies — communities on the ground are getting close to boiling point. Border province clinics like those in Limpopo say they are flooded with Zimbabwean patients after the health system in Zimbabwe collapsed — something that made one South African physician publicly denounce a Zimbabwean patient in a viral video last year. Johannesburg schools find it difficult to integrate Zimbabwean children who arrive speaking no local languages. The ANC is far more concerned with "brotherhood" with ZANU-PF than with what transpires on the streets of South African towns on a daily basis.

Vote for Change – Stop Enabling Tyranny

South Africa heads into a pivotal election in 2029 with many issues on their minds: load-shedding, corruption, unemployment, crime. But South Africa cannot afford to overlook foreign policy and regional stability as an election issue either – because, as the Zimbabwean experience shows, what happens in a neighboring country can come home to roost in very tangible ways.

Critics have long called on the ANC-dominated government to stand stronger with Zimbabwe – to use South Africa's considerable influence (as economic powerhouse of Africa and as proximate neighbor on whom landlocked Zimbabwe is dependent) to try to convince Harare that reform is necessary. The choices might include openly condemning election tampering, imposing economic sanctions or targeted sanctions on ZANU-PF political elites, or at least not legitimizing their violations. Instead, the ANC grants open support to ZANU-PF, discrediting any concerted regional action to address the crisis in Zimbabwe. In this way, the ANC is betraying not only the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe but also South Africans themselves, who suffer the worst of the spillover consequences.

Does South Africa continue along the path of "quiet complicity," where SA leaders set aside older revolutionary loyalties before the interest of South Africa? Or do South Africans stand firm on their values of democracy and accountability, and urge their neighbors to do so too? Stopping the Zimbabwean immigration crisis and its tensions will require change in Zimbabwe — and that requires a change in South Africa's strategy towards Zimbabwe. The simplest way of expressing change is at the ballot box.

In 2029, to vote against the ANC is to finally stand up to the authoritarians. Do not vote for the ANC — South Africa’s future, and her neighbors', depends on it.