Thousands of people demonstrated this Monday in several South African cities to demand the resignation of the country's President, Cyril Ramaphosa, as part of a "total shutdown" called by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party.

In Pretoria, the country's capital, the leader of the radical left opposition party, Julius Malema, led a march of at least 3,000 people, accompanied by Duduzile Zuma, the daughter of former president Jacob Zuma, and Nelson Mandela's former spokesman, Carl Niehaus, who was expelled from the African National Congress (ANC), urging the country to "prepare" for the departure from power of the current head of state.

"This is the beginning, there's much more to come. Be ready, South Africa. Ramaphosa will fall," Malema declared through a loudspeaker as he thanked the huge crowd of EFF supporters who accompanied him on the protest march through the streets of the South African capital to the official residence of the South African President of the Republic.

"We came to tell Ramaphosa that he should leave office. He is no longer our president," said Malema, quoted by Lusa.

Malema and his supporters reiterated the opposition party's calls for Ramaphosa's government to abandon its policies of privatizing state companies, which are in debt and technically bankrupt after three decades of ANC rule.

According to Malema, the ruling party "has collapsed several public companies and now intends to privatize them".

Vuyolwethu Zungula, leader of the African Transformation Movement (ATM) party, who also accompanied Malema at the protest, declared that the South African head of state should step down because "he has failed to lead South Africa to prosperity".

"Only the people of this country can resolve the current situation, and to those who stayed at home, wanting to normalize this anomaly, I want to tell you that you can't sit at home and normalize our suffering, you can't stay at home and think that the power cuts are a normal situation," he said.

For his part, the leader of the United Democratic Movement (UDM), Bantu Holomisa, said that his party took part in the action to protest against "the electricity cuts and corruption in the ANC".

The political parties Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), the Alliance for African Radical Economic Transformation (ARETA) movement of expelled former ANC member Carl Niehaus, and the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), are some of the organizations that have also joined the protests of the South African radical left.

The general strike in South Africa was called by the far-left EFF party, led by Julius Malema, against the electricity crisis, crime and high unemployment.

In Johannesburg, hundreds of Malema supporters have said that the protest on the streets of the economic capital will continue "until midnight" today.

Burnt-out buses, barricaded roads, stoning and burning tires were some of the incidents recorded in various provinces across the country.

The home of a community leader in the South African township of Soweto, south of Johannesburg, was attacked with commercial explosives this morning, South African police said.

The national currency, the rand, depreciated to 18.49 against the US dollar, close to the all-time low of 19 rand to every dollar recorded three years ago at the start of the covid-19 pandemic.

The stoppage called by the EFF comes after the appointment of an Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, to address the unprecedented general power crisis in the continent's most developed economy, which has deprived South Africans of at least 12 hours without electricity a day.

At least 87 people, including members of the EFF, were arrested this morning in South Africa for public violence during the protests, South African police announced.

At least 3,400 South African army (SANDF) troops have been deployed since Sunday to support the police in controlling the protests called by Julius Malema, who was the ruling ANC's Youth leader between 2008 and 2012.