Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, leader of the March and March movement, addresses speculation about her political ambitions and clarifies her stance on potential affiliations with ActionSA and other parties.
Image: TUMI PAKKIES/Independent Newspapers
Questions over whether March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma could join ActionSA and emerge as the party’s eThekwini mayoral candidate have intensified online in recent weeks, with some social media users drawing parallels between her and Xolani Khumalo.
The speculation follows Khumalo’s own political move into ActionSA after rising to prominence through the anti-drug television show Sizok'thola. Critics and supporters alike have questioned whether Ngobese-Zuma’s growing public profile and activism could lead to a similar political trajectory.
The local government elections will be held in November and political parties have been announcing their mayoral candidates for municipalities in recent weeks.
Speaking during a media briefing on Monday night, Ngobese-Zuma dismissed claims that March and March was created as a vehicle for political ambitions or that she was aligned to any specific political formation.
She said the movement started organically after members of the public encouraged her to move beyond social media commentary and take action.
“People literally dared me to start and do something because I had been talking about these issues for so long,” she said. “That is really how March and March started.”
Ngobese-Zuma accused critics of shifting attention away from the movement’s objectives and instead focusing on her personally.
“The minute you stand up for something in this country, people start wanting to dig up why you are doing it. Suddenly I am funded. But nobody said I was funded when people thought the movement would fail,” she said.
She also pushed back against allegations that she was linked to political parties, saying people had repeatedly attempted to associate her with various organisations depending on who she met.
“If I meet someone from MK, people suddenly claim I am sent by Zuma because of my surname. Tomorrow if I meet with the IFP, people will say it is an IFP thing,” she said.
Ngobese-Zuma maintained that March and March had engaged with people from multiple political parties from the beginning, including ActionSA, MK, the IFP, and the Patriotic Alliance, but denied that such engagements meant the movement belonged to any political organisation.
“ActionSA is a political party. We are a movement,” she said. “We are focused on putting South Africans first and fighting illegal immigration and foreign nationals committing crimes in the country.”
While denying immediate political ambitions, Ngobese-Zuma revealed that she had received several offers from political parties to join them.
“I am sitting with about seven or eight offers from political parties to join them, including some I had never heard of before,” she said.
She added that some supporters had encouraged her to transform March and March into a political party, but insisted that doing so now would undermine the trust of supporters.
“I cannot go into the system if I am fighting the system. Then I am doing exactly what I said I would not do,” she said.
However, she did not entirely rule out entering politics in the future.
“Maybe in the next couple of years, if there is a need for me to assist where I can assist, I would consider it,” she said. “But right now, my job is to grow March and March, grow patriotism among South Africans, and make sure people never again allow government to treat them the way they have been treated.”
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