By PETER DUBE

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While South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) remains largely a political archrival of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, there are instances when they seemed to budge their radical stances and agree on mutual interests.

For example, when President Cyril Ramaphosa suggested land reforms four years ago, the EFF party was among the lead supporters of the suggested reforms.

“South Africa could turn into the ultimate paradise if the implementation of the policy of expropriation of land without compensation leads to higher food production,” declared Ramaphosa in December 2017 at the ANC’s 54th national conference.

The ruling party had adopted a policy that if implemented, would see to it that land owned by white farmers to the state’s custody and that the previous owner would not be compensated.  

Mr Ramaphosa added that they could make South Africa like the “Garden of Eden.”

In recent years, the land reform became arguably the fiercest political issue fronted to voters by the ruling ANC and the opposition EFF in South Africa. On Tuesday, opposition parties welcomed the decision by the National Assembly not to pass the 18th constitutional amendment bill to allow for land expropriation without compensation.

As expected, the ANC failed to garner enough votes to pass the bill, which would have resulted in the amendment of Section 25 of the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation.

Almost all opposition parties voted against the amendment, ending a prolonged four-year process that divided parties and society. The ANC had an insurmountable task and required 267 votes or a two-thirds majority to pass the amendment bill to amend the Constitution. However, the party only managed to garner 204 votes after most parties rejected the bill.

EFF leader Julius Malema said they voted against the amendment bill in its current format because it represented a "sell-out" arrangement and departed from the party's original motion in 2018.

“The EFF rejects this bill because it’s a complete departure from the radical proposal that was made. Our goal remains expropriation of land without compensation and will never change,” Mr Malema said.  

Democratic Alliance (DA) caucus chair Dr Annelie Lotriet said the failure to amend Section 25 of the constitution was a victory for South Africa's constitutional order.

“It’s a victory for the constitution, for all those who believe that property rights lie at the heart of a prosperous society,” she said.

Parliamentary process

Two months after the 2017 ANC’s conference resolution, a parliamentary process of amending the property rights in Section 25 of the South African Constitution was set in motion to enable the seizure of privately-owned farms belonging to whites into state land without compensation.

Since then, ANC and EFF have lunged into disagreements that risked stalling the passing of the proposed amendments to Section 25 of the Constitution.

The EFF was pushing for radical changes, insisting on full state custodianship, while the ANC changed course a little, saying “certain land” should be expropriated without compensation.

That the ruling party wanted to smuggle in a compensation clause threw them at odds with the EFF, resulting in the Red Berets not voting “for a sell-out amendment which still speaks of compensation.”

The move left the ruling ANC on their own, falling way short of the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to pass the Expropriation Bill.

Mbeki’s letter

An ANC stalwart who feels the party should not repossess white-own farms recently added a new twist to the wrangling.

Former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki penned a 15-page document a few months ago warning that the ANC’s proposals on land expropriation without compensation would lead to a “severe disincentive to investment which our country cannot afford.”

Besides Mbeki arguing that this type of land reform would scare away potential investors, he believed it had the likelihood of fanning tribalism in South Africa since only specific communities were displaced from their land by colonial settlers before 1913.

“The question that arises is what ‘communities’ will claim land restitution starting from the 1650s? Those who propose this amendment must answer this question,” argued Mr Mbeki in his letter.

“This would mean the reintroduction of very regressive tribalism in South Africa, with the land portioned out to various nationalities/tribes. It is evident that under no circumstances would the ANC agree to such an eventuality, which would exactly be the result of accepting the constitutional amendment as indicated.

“The original demand was for expropriation of land on the basis that it had been expropriated without compensation through the process of settler colonialism, and it was also stated that in carrying out such expropriation without compensation ‘we must ensure that we do not undermine future investment in the economy [and] not cause harm to other sectors of the economy,’” the letter read in part.

Mr Mbeki has always been against land expropriation without compensation.

He feels this approach in addressing the land question does not speak to the Freedom Charter, demanding racial tolerance.

“It does not say black, white, settler, no settler. So has the ANC now departed from this position?” Mbeki told Afrikaans publication Rapport in 2019.

“The thesis that there were settlers who came to South Africa [who] took our land without compensation, and therefore we must take that land back and give it to other people, what does that mean?”

In his recent letter, he reiterated that whites surrendering their properties to the state without compensation goes against the Freedom Charter.

He argued that land should be equally shared among those who desire to work on it regardless of their skin colour.
The former statesman fears that South Africa could degenerate into another Zimbabwe where land expropriation without compensation was chaotic and drove away investors while also causing food insecurity.

Civil rights organisation and Afrikaners lobby group, AfriForum, describe land expropriation without compensation as a “political ploy” and a “disaster in waiting.”

AfriForum argued there is no real “hunger for land” as “the vast majority of black people in South Africa have no interest in owning agricultural land.”

While land repossession is touted as efforts to address historical injustices and racially skewed land-ownership patterns dating back to apartheid and colonial rule, AfriForum argued that the proposals are, in fact, a “clear racist motivation.”

“It is clear that the South African government’s push for expropriation without compensation is founded in racist sentiment and a distortion of history,” the group said.

“It is also clear that the so-called hunger for land is largely non-existent – particularly about agricultural land. Furthermore, it is clear that land reform has already been disastrous to the extent that it has been executed in South Africa."

AfriForum went on to warn that “While the primary targets of this policy are white farmers, the primary victims might just as well be the very people that the South African government claims to represent.

“Furthermore, the motion to expropriate property without compensation is based on a flawed state-driven land audit that is soaked with fabrications and methodological errors.”

The group accused President Ramaphosa of being dishonest. AfriForum said that while the South African leader is on a worldwide crusade to woo investors to South Africa, he is not guaranteeing property rights in his backyard.