Jacob Zuma’s BRICS push and political reset: Pan-African pitch amid fierce backlash

Zuma’s BRICS drumbeat and a pan‑African pitch

Seven years after leaving the Union Buildings, Jacob Zuma is packing halls again—this time not as South Africa’s president, but as the head of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party and a traveling advocate for a different economic order. His message is blunt: Africa should stop playing by Western rules and build power through unity, industrial capacity, and deeper ties with BRICS.

In August 2025, at the Annual Leadership Lecture hosted by the University of Professional Studies in Accra (UPSA), Zuma delivered the punch line that set the tone: “The West built its powers by chaining Africa.” He urged a generational shift—“from the classroom to the policy room, from the laboratory to the marketplace”—arguing that African universities shouldn’t just churn out employees for foreign companies but nurture inventors, builders, and policy leaders who shape African systems.

That pitch folds neatly into his long-running defense of BRICS. Zuma was president when South Africa joined the bloc in 2010, and he still frames it as a practical alternative to Western-dominated finance. In Accra and again at an August 8 media briefing back home, he said the dominance of the US dollar remains a straitjacket—“oppressing everybody including them”—and he wants African partners to settle more trade in local currencies and build financial tools that don’t depend on Washington or Brussels.

His BRICS story is simple: if Africa keeps exporting raw materials priced in dollars and importing expensive finished goods, it will never break out of debt and dependency. He argues for targeted industrialization—refining minerals at home, turning agricultural strength into food-processing jobs, and building regional value chains so African economies trade with each other at scale.

The MK Party platform he outlined in August sticks to that script. Zuma says South Africa’s struggle for “total liberation” is unfinished, not in the political sense but in the economy. The party’s talking points focus on faster industrial growth, tighter African trade links, and BRICS partnerships that de-risk currency volatility and lending costs. He frames it as building “an inclusive, resilient economy,” with the state steering strategy while the private sector makes and exports more.

Why Ghana, and why now? He’s courting a young, pan‑African audience that sees BRICS as a path to leverage. Accra offered him a regional stage where the language of sovereignty and self-reliance resonates. He’s also tapping into a wider continental push to move from commodities to manufacturing—from lithium and manganese to batteries and components for the energy transition. In that space, the promise of cheaper finance from BRICS banks and settlements in local currencies looks appealing.

Across his speeches, Zuma keeps returning to four themes:

• De-dollarization in trade and finance, shifting deals toward local currencies and regional payment systems.
• Industrialization at home—beneficiation of minerals, value-added agriculture, and manufacturing for African markets.
• Pan-African coordination so small national markets act like one, from customs to standards to logistics.
• Rebalancing global power, with BRICS as a counterweight to Western-led institutions.

He also pushes a personal brand that goes beyond party politics. At events, Zuma claims lawmakers and leaders from “all over the world” seek his counsel on African conflicts and economic knots. The image he’s projecting is that of a seasoned fixer who understands the continent’s politics and can open doors in Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, and Brasília.

Domestic pushback, credibility questions, and the stakes for South Africa

That storyline meets a very different one at home. Government figures and rivals argue Zuma is rewriting history while sidestepping the mess he left behind. During a parliamentary budget debate, International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola blasted the MK leader’s ethics and integrity. He pointed to past judicial controversies around Zuma’s era and even referenced a former judge who, he said, tried to sway colleagues to support Zuma—framing it as part of a wider pattern of corrosive influence. The thrust of the criticism: Zuma cannot be the face of a clean break when he’s still shadowed by legal and ethical baggage.

Those shadows are not new. Zuma’s presidency ended in 2018 under pressure from his own party amid rising allegations of state capture, later detailed by the Zondo Commission. In 2021, he served time for contempt of court after defying the Constitutional Court. He remains a polarizing figure—venerated by a loyal base that sees him as a victim of political persecution, and viewed warily by voters who remember load-shedding spikes, governance failures, and the cost of corruption to public services.

Still, Zuma’s political instincts haven’t dulled. The MK Party’s surge in the 2024 election reshaped the map, especially in KwaZulu-Natal, where his support is deepest. While the governing coalition under President Cyril Ramaphosa points to green shoots—stabilizing state-owned enterprises like Eskom and South African Airways, a clearer turnaround plan for logistics, and efforts to crowd in private energy—Zuma counters with a narrative that these fixes are too slow and too modest for an economy stuck in low growth and high unemployment.

His economic case hinges on leverage. South Africa trades heavily with China and the European Union, benefits from US market access through AGOA, and relies on investment from many directions at once. Zuma argues that BRICS tools—like the New Development Bank and local currency settlement—can reduce exposure to dollar swings and Western sanctions risks. Critics warn that de-dollarization is not a magic switch: most global trade is still invoiced in dollars, FX liquidity is deepest there, and shifting invoicing brings transaction costs and legal complexities that businesses can’t ignore.

There’s also the delicate balance of foreign policy. South Africa wants investment from the West and the East, and it needs export markets everywhere—from minerals and autos to agriculture and services. A hard pivot away from the dollar would bring political points but could rattle investor sentiment and complicate financing for projects priced globally. That’s why even BRICS governments have mostly taken an incremental route: promoting local-currency deals where it makes sense, while keeping the dollar role that reduces friction in complex supply chains.

Zuma’s answer is to push harder on regional integration. If African countries reduce internal barriers, harmonize standards, and improve freight corridors, they can scale local markets and settle more trade in their own currencies. That dovetails with the African Continental Free Trade Area, which aims to phase out many tariffs and streamline rules over time. His pitch is that South Africa should lead with infrastructure, finance, and industrial policy that make that vision real—foundries, cathode plants, fertilizer factories, and food-processing hubs linked to rail and ports that work.

The skeptics ask for specifics. What does the MK Party propose on the rand, on the Reserve Bank’s mandate, on tariffs, on state ownership? How would it fund big industrial schemes without spooking bond markets or draining social spending? And how does it secure cheap energy at scale while speeding up grid investment? Zuma’s speeches lean more on direction than detail, but he has a read on the public mood: people want jobs, steady power, and less policy drift.

Business leaders are listening, even if they don’t agree. De-risking currency exposure through more local-currency trade is not controversial on its own; companies already hedge and sometimes invoice in partner currencies. The bigger questions are about cost and predictability. If lenders price loans higher in a thin currency market, projects get more expensive. If settlement systems are patchy, cross-border deals slow down. So the real test of any BRICS-led shift is whether it lowers costs for exporters and contractors within a credible legal and regulatory framework.

On the political front, Zuma is working a two-lane strategy: international stages to burnish stature, and domestic rallies to lock in his base. The Ghana lecture served the former; the August 8 media briefing served the latter. His talking points were calibrated the same way—pan‑African pride, BRICS as a lever, and a promise to move from rhetoric to pipelines, factories, and markets that employ people within a few years rather than decades.

Supporters hear a leader who speaks plainly about power and dependency. Opponents hear a familiar populism that glosses over the hard graft of macroeconomic stability, institutional repairs, and rule-of-law credibility needed to attract long-term capital. Both can be true at once. South Africa needs faster growth, more competition-friendly reforms, and bolder industrial policy that avoids past pitfalls. It also needs steady diplomacy that keeps doors open in Washington, Brussels, Beijing, and New Delhi, because the country’s fortunes rise with access to all those markets.

That’s the core tension Zuma is exploiting: the hunger for a new deal versus the risk of burning old bridges. He is betting that a louder BRICS stance and a pan‑African identity will resonate with voters who feel left behind and with young professionals who want to build at home rather than emigrate. Whether that becomes a governing program—or remains a powerful campaign theme—depends on how the next year of coalition politics, energy stability, and growth numbers play out.

For now, Zuma has put himself back at the center of a big conversation: Who gets to define South Africa’s economic path, and how far should the country lean into BRICS to get there? The answer won’t be decided in a single lecture or briefing. It will be hammered out in budgets, boardrooms, and border posts—where currency, contracts, and cargo either move more easily, or they don’t.