The Covid-19 Pandemic and Cartooning the South African President

Abstract The article examines some of the historical, political, and institutional forces shaping newspaper cartoons in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that cartoons in South Africa have served and serve a very different function from that described in influential accounts of cartoons in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe by Achille Mbembe, Lyombe Eko, Wendy Willems, and others. To demonstrate these key differences, the article examines how South African cartoonists covered the first stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Mbembe’s influential account of postcolonial uses of cartoon humour suggests a strongly ambivalent consequence of the portrayal of the “Autocrat” in power, as both attacking him and reinforcing his all-encompassing role. South African cartoonists, however, produced a far more nuanced view of the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, during the crisis. Many cartoons showed the limits on his power and portrayed him as a moderating force caught between opposing forces and factions. The article analyses the causes for and consequences of this very different portrayal of the South African president.