NONGQAI SERIES THE MEN SPEAK Dr Willem Steenkamp
THE LAND ISSUE IN SOUTH AFRICA:
Emotion, Reason, Necessity
OP-ED by Dr Willem Steenkamp
ABSTRACT: Land as national security issue in South Africa – an analysis of the significance of the 2025 Expropriation Act for South Africa’s evolving socio-political and economic landscape, from a national security perspective.
KEYWORDS: EWC, land expropriation without compensation, ANC
Read time: 16 minutes
CONTEXT:
The land issue in South Africa (who “stole” what from whom, and how to make matters “right”) is a highly emotionally charged one. It is therefore understandable that, from all sides of the political spectrum, it is currently front and centre in the party-political debate. That said, the issue clearly also holds significantly serious potential implications for national security – not only in terms of stoking polarization and possibly even exploding into violent conflict, but also regarding the economic and financial well-being of the nation. It is this national security angle (thus, not the party-political one) that interests NONGQAI as a national security and forces history e-magazine. Our goal with publishing this analysis is to contribute to a broader understanding of this complex issue. On the one hand, the land issue is crucially important to the psyche and future well-being of all segments of the nation, so that it cannot and should not be ignored. , On the other hand, though, one also cannot risk “solutions” that may unleash devastating unintended consequences – especially when one considers the recent history of land reform, as experienced in other countries…
THE SOUTH AFRICAN DEBATE ON LAND AS IT STANDS:
President Cyril Ramaphosa recently joined in this emotionally charged debate, declaring that ancestral land must be returned to “his people” without compensation. Among others, EFF leader Julius Malema echoed similar sentiments, promising that a future EFF-led government would seize farms and hand them over to workers – no compensation, no nuance.
But what are we really talking about here? Is it about productive and equitable land reform? Is it political positioning among parties in our currently majority-less political landscape, with the president joining in simply to try and undercut a central party-political platform plank of the opposition to his left?
Is the “hard left’s” long-standing emphasis on land a manipulative political tactic designed to divide, polarize, and attract support from the perennially disaffected? Is the Right in the right, when they allege it to be a fake issue, artificially inflamed by unscrupulous politicians? Are those who identify this as a dangerous issue with huge implications for property rights and thus the economy and investment, correct? Also, when they suggest that government should not allow it to be politicised and should rather stick to the 1994 transition deal?
Or, does land rights indeed touch so sensitive a nerve among the previously dispossessed, that it absolutely now needs some kind of well thought out and visible redress – in order precisely to safeguard future stability and national cohesion?
Former President Thabo Mbeki, in a televised interview, offered clarifying practical insights. He told Malema directly that he doesn’t need votes – but Malema does. Mbeki pointed out three critical truths, established by hard practical experience with land reform efforts to date in South Africa:
- first, that most beneficiaries of land reform actually chose cash over land;
- second, that many of those who did receive farms failed in their agricultural efforts; and third,
- that the majority of South Africans are looking for places to live in towns and cities near their jobs – not farmland in rural areas.
These are not emotional arguments. They’re facts.
According to African Agri Magazine: “Even 27 years after the original cutoff date (for filing land claims), South Africa still lacks a finalized list of claimed properties. Since the first reported list of claims in 2002, which included 63,000 claims, the number has now risen to about 83,000… In addition, there are 163,000 “new order” land claims filed since 2014, which have been suspended until the 1998 claims are resolved.”
According to the latest available land audit, South Africa consists of about 121.9 million hectares of land. Of that, 14% is owned by the state, 79% is privately owned, and 7% is unaccounted for. A deeper look reveals that individuals, companies, traditional authorities, and trusts hold 90% of the land, with 10% held by the state.
Even more telling is the state’s own failure to manage the land it already controls. In February 2025, Minister Dean Macpherson revealed that the government owns 830 unused and abandoned farms. In Limpopo alone, 609 state-owned farms were sitting idle as far back as January 2020. That’s 74% of land reform farms in the province left untouched—while taxpayers have footed the bill for R65 million in taxes and levies by January 2025.
Meanwhile, commercial agriculture is in decline. Since 1996, the number of commercial farmers has dropped by 34%. The dairy industry, for example, has shrunk by 73% in terms of the number of producers. A recent study shows that 20% of South African farmers plan to exit the industry in the next decade.
Recent financial data shows that there has been “a huge outflow of capital from South Africa’s equity and bond markets” according to DFM Global. Economists point to the fact that most South Africans are experiencing a loss of prosperity. The exchange value of the Rand against the dollar has fallen from R12.40/USD in January 2018 to more than R18/USD in April 2025. The SA Reserve Bank states that: “Capital flows are important source of savings in a savings-constrained economy such as South Africa’s. Capital outflows can reduce liquidity and growth in asset prices, increase default probabilities and push lending spreads up (tighten financial conditions)”.
MODERN INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE WITH LAND REFORM:
Many countries have, in the post-colonial era, engaged in different forms of land reform. In the case of countries that had systems amounting to rural serfdom, projects to pass ownership of large estates to those who actually “tilled the land” (i.e., were working those big estates) in many cases succeeded in alleviating rural poverty as well as in addressing the sense of injustice that had marked the old systems. In some cases, these “land to the tiller” policies had turned to collectivism (i.e., group ownership) in socialist-inclined systems. In other cases, such as most notably Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, considerable success was achieved because a capitalist ethos was followed in their land reform programmes, leading to rapid economic advancement across the spectrum of economic activity (these success stories are also notable for the fact that land ownership issues there had been defined by class distinctions within an otherwise homogenous ethnic population, and not by the far more complex and emotionally laden issue of race associated with a history of colonial conquest).
In other countries, where crude non-compensatory confiscatory policies were followed and the land taken wasn’t handed over to its actual tillers, but to politically selected beneficiaries, chaos and general economic collapse typically followed. This was especially the case when the true motivation for land reform was not to empower the actual rural peasantry who had been working the land in question, but in fact to exploit for political gain the chagrin persisting among the previously dispossessed about the perceived historic wrongs associated with colonial conquest by whites of land previously owned by indigenous peoples. Such land was commonly perceived to have been “stolen” by force, and redress was believed necessary for the healing of the dispossessed and their empowerment – although in these cases the land issue usually became more of a political rallying cry with which politicians tried to garner support, rather than a well-planned and properly executed program of sustainable reforms leading to enhanced economic well-being and some sense of injustice redressed.
Some examples of such crude confiscatory “land reform” and their disastrous consequences are well known to most South Africans.
We are all aware of what resulted in Zimbabwe when white commercial farmers were expelled from their land. This occurred at the turn of the century, when then President Robert Mugabe (after twenty years in power) started encountering ever stronger political headwinds from within the black community, because of lack of delivery of the better life that had been promised. The crude re-distribution of land confiscated without compensation was thus a political expedient on the part of a leader under political threat who thereby wanted to appease and reward his mostly rural remaining followers, but which resulted in the Zimbabwean economy being disastrously impacted – turning what was once called “Africa’s breadbasket” into a basket case, unable to feed itself and with its currency collapsing to the point of going out of circulation.
Another example of such extreme “land reform”, this time driven by ideological radicalism, occurred in Cuba after the delusional Argentinian Marxist fundamentalist Che Guevara was put in charge of the economy, land reform and housing. His extreme measures to confiscate the land, homes, businesses and even money of the mostly white elite, caused the total collapse of Cuban productivity and resulted in an exodus of practically all those who had made that country function before.
More recently, the economy of Venezuela has been ruined because most of its productive population have been motivated to flee that once wealthy country due to socialist economic policies that in reality have been driven by an underlying anti-white animus on the part of the new holders of political power in Caracas.
What the international experience thus illustrates, is that land reform comes in many forms, each with different consequences – from very good to exceedingly bad – depending on its underlying nature, sophistication, plus the ideological/emotional motivation behind it. If it is designed to allow more people to have a real personal stake in the capitalist system, and if driven by free market principles and objectives, then such land reform has been proven to be a force for the common good. On the other end of the spectrum, it has been conclusively proven that crude expropriatory “land reform” ostensibly designed to “retrieve stolen land” but in fact being used as a political tool with which to curry favour among sectors of the electorate, typically results in national economic failure.
That said, there is however another critically important reality (as seen from a national security perspective), which must always be kept in mind when land issues are considered. Especially when that debate relates to land acquired through colonial conquest. That reality is that history is replete with examples of where genuine grievances regarding historic injustices regarding land ownership were ignored, with that failure to act then leading to bloodshed and destruction.
In other words, simply doing nothing about land grievances is also not an option.
Failure to address so emotionally charged an issue in timely manner then becomes, in and of itself, an equally certain recipe for disaster. Because there are few issues more deeply felt emotionally than the sense that a powerful outsider invaded and by force of arms conquered and effectively stole the land of those who were colonised.
The bloody lot of the French in Algeria and in Indo-China illustrates this. France had crudely attempted to re-establish again its imperium after the end of the 2nd World War. This inevitably led to successful so-called “peasant revolutions”. The end result was that the French state and its settlers (such as the Pieds-Noir who had been farming in Algeria for generations as if on land part of France), in the end lost everything, leaving the settlers to flee for their lives…
So, what type of land reform is envisaged in South Africa? On the one hand, there certainly are loudly vocal political leaders on the side of the EFF and MKP who are beating the emotional drum of “stolen” land and who insist on “EWC” (expropriation without compensation). On the other side of the spectrum, there are also those who do not want to countenance any manner of land reform and who effectively insist that “a deal is a deal” (demanding respect for the agreement regarding strong constitutional protection for property rights reached at Kempton Park during the negotiations that underpinned the transition to a non-racial democracy).
Both sides are not without some reason in their respective positions, even though so diametrically opposed. The “take back the stolen land” proponents are entirely correct in identifying the powerful psychological importance of the land issue, given South Africa’s heterogeneous composition and colonial legacy of military conquest and later nakedly race-based land policies. Equally reasonable, in their own way, are those who insist that the existing order should not be overturned, based on the likely catastrophic economic and humanitarian consequences that may result if investor confidence collapses, the skills exodus accelerate, and expertise in food production is lost, due to the legislature having fiddled with and weakened property rights.
The two ends of the spectrum, even though each is holding on to an important part of the truth, are both defective in that their respective positions cannot account for the whole truth. Their “solutions” are not capable of addressing the entirety of the complex challenges that exist. Any real, holistic solution would require careful calibration and configuration of measures capable of meeting the essential needs of all of the competing interests at stake, which therefore would in large measure need to be based on compromises being struck between competing interests.
Given this need for cool heads and un-emotional assessment, it is important to calmly consider now two important factors: (1) the particular history of South Africa’s land reform challenge, plus (2) what does the new expropriation act as recently signed into law by President Ramaphosa actually say?
THE HISTORY OF THE LAND ISSUE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA:
Humankind has always been highly mobile. Entire populations have migrated – first, out of Africa, to populate the world. Then a constant flux of mass migration from one region to another, displacing those who had arrived before them. This universal reality has existed through all of known history.
The principle of international law under which the results of these usurpations of land gained recognition, was the Law of Conquest – a legal principle not based on ethics or fairness, but on taking cognizance of hard practical reality. What you could and did physically take, became recognized as yours (at least till the next guy, stronger still, in turn dispossessed you and your descendants in title). The Law of Conquest underpinned Roman imperialism (and the expansion of all other empires). It also gave legal standing to the land claims made by European colonizers.
Perceptions about what is morally right and wrong have, however, changed since the world wars of the previous century. Conquest and dispossession of the weak by the strong using superior military force, is now frowned upon. “Justifications” that had served in earlier times, such as “bringing civilization and true religion to savages” are no longer accepted, with colonial conquest now being seen for what it always was – a blatant quest to accumulate riches (as demonstrated in South Africa’s case by the British ambition to control first the diamonds and then the gold of the Boer republics).
Southern Africa had, of course, experienced its own long history of mass migration and consequent displacement of earlier inhabitants from well before Europeans arrived. The San (Bushmen) hunter-gatherers were displaced by the KhoiKhoi (Khoe) herdsmen, who had migrated down from North-East Africa ahead of pressure from the agro-pastoralist Bantu peoples. The Khoe reached the Cape as relative safe haven, because climatic conditions in the south-western reaches of the continent did not favour the cultivation of crops such as sorghum, which had been important to the Bantu.
In other words, before the whites arrived the San had been largely displaced by the Khoe, and the Khoe in turn had been displaced from the more fertile north-eastern half of Southern Africa by the Bantu. When white officials representing the United East-Indies Company eventually established themselves at the Cape and, obtaining liberty as “free burghers” started expanding from there some four centuries ago, they interacted mostly with the Khoe, till the expansion reached the Fish River where Bantu tribal lands began. These whites who came to Africa from different European countries (but principally from modern-day Germany, the Netherlands and France) went on intermix, also with locals and slaves from Africa and Asia. Thus evolved a new people identifying with Africa rather than Europe – the Afrikaans-speaking population that dominated at the Cape till the arrival of the British.
A particular feature of the “theft” of indigenous land was that the African expanse at that time was bereft of any permanent built structures of value. The whites thus took possession of just bare land – everything subsequently built or developed on it, was value they had added. Which begs the question: what should be given back? Must everything that had been built or developed, now first be erased, in order to return the exact equivalent of what had been originally taken? Or should there be equitable compensation for the value that had been added (as per normal law regarding enrichment?). In the case of most developed properties, the bare land as such forms but a small proportion of the total value of the whole – how much wealth will be “stolen” or destroyed, in such a process of crude land restitution?
Take the practical example of two of the first such dispossessions of land – the Cape Town Castle and the Company Gardens. Both are now public property, but once this land obviously had belonged to the Gorachoqua tribe. In principle, how should their descendants (if identifiable) be compensated for something that happened almost four hundred years ago? How does this situation differ in law from the conquest of North America, Australasia and other territories where whites acquired title to property? What should universal justice demand, in case of land now owned in those modern countries by settler descendants who hold private title to land formerly possessed communally by indigenous tribes? These practical difficulties are raised, not to deny the need for measures that will restore a sense of justice, but to illustrate the complexities involved and the practical consequences that may arise, even if unintended.
But back now to the British annexation of the Cape in 1806 – this soon enough led to a substantial number of Afrikaners trekking into the Bantu-ruled hinterland, to escape British rule. There they bartered or outright conquered land from local Bantu tribes (such as the honestly-named “Verowerde Gebied” – literally, the Conquered Territory – in the eastern Free State, taken in war from the Basutho). The Boer Republics persisted till the beginning of the previous century, when the British finally had forced them into submission through the costliest wars in the Empire’s history till the world wars came along. Ironically, this conquest to which they were subjected left the Afrikaners with much the same chagrin that non-white South Africans feel about dispossessions under the 1913 Natives Land Act and “black spot” removal, and the Group Areas Act of 1950.
The British themselves were no strangers to conquest. The pre-Celtic populations of the British Isles had been displaced by the Celts, who had expanded westward from Central Europe. Then, the Romans conquered the southern parts (what was to become modern-day England). When the Roman Empire withdrew from England, it opened the way for the Germanic Anglo-Saxons to invade, who then in northern regions of England were in turn partially invaded by the Vikings. Anglo-Saxon rule eventually was overthrown when in 1066 the aptly-named warlord from Normandy in France, William the Conqueror, invaded from the south and conquered all of England and subsequently Wales. The feudal system installed by the Normans to this day means that all land in England and Wales still legally-technically belongs to the Crown (individual subjects “hold” land – as opposed to owning full title to it in own right – by dent of a system of devolution of rights from the sovereign down.
The Anglo-Norman system of royal ownership of land was in principle similar to what pertained in Southern Africa under Bantu Law, where the king or chiefs decided the temporary allocation of parcels of land owned communally by the tribe, to individual members to use. Thus, when Piet Retief wanted to obtain land from Zulu king Dingane, Retief’s perception of the transaction was fundamentally different to how it was understood by Dingane. To the latter, the Trekkers were simply another wandering tribe seeking permission to settle on and work part of his territory – which would remain his territory, because the European concept of exclusionary private ownership of land was totally alien to African thinking (as was also the case in the Americas and Australasia – giving rise to the same problems there).
The “alien” European concept of acquiring exclusive private ownership of land in exchange for value offered, which land then became yours to fence off and possess to the exclusion of all others, gave rise to innumerable conflicts about access to waterholes, pasturage and the like. This was due to the very fundamental differences in expectations and conceptual reference frameworks between the whites who had exclusive private ownership in mind, and African traditionalists who were used to shared usage as communal land (and who thus saw the whites as simply being another authorized addition to the sharing pool).
Land in traditional societies is the ultimate form of wealth. It is therefore not difficult to understand how emotionally-charged this issue is till this day (Afrikaners will well remember their own feelings about the British conquering their republics). Such an emotion-laden issue obviously lends itself to becoming a political lever to employ in the contest for voter support.
In South Africa’s case, the matter became all the more charged in the 20th century when legislation such as the 1913 Natives Land Act and the Group Areas Act of 1950 were passed – the latter being a deliberate form of “ethnic cleansing”, even though carried out by Bedford truck and not through killing. It was thus not surprising that measures were adopted during the constitutional negotiations preceding South Africa’s new constitution of 1996, to rectify these past wrongs and ensure restitution to qualifying land claimants.
A considerable amount of government funding and energy has since been allocated to this, but – as pointed out earlier – without much real success to date (for example, leaving hundreds of legitimately expropriated and fully compensated farms, lying unutilized).
Why, then, with all this underutilized land and a shrinking agricultural sector, do politicians continue to beat the drum of expropriation? Why do they persist in accusing landowners and their ancestors of “land theft,” a narrative that inflames rather than informs?
The explanation lies in South Africa’s political reality of the moment, with the delicate balance of power due to no single party holding an outright majority in parliament. Voter appeal is paramount, and it’s a tactic as old as political propaganda itself to stir up emotion, create a villain, and offer a simplistic yet seemingly appealing “solution” to a complex problem, in order to garner support. EWC’s strong emergence now (for a long time the moderates within the ANC had side-stepped and delayed it), says more about the current divisions within the ANC and the electorate than about the intrinsic merits of the matter.
It should be kept in mind when and how this rhetoric about “Expropriation Without Compensation” (EWC) really took off. During Jacob Zuma’s presidency, the “land theft” narrative was crafted – not arising organically, but strategically re-enforced – by the political propaganda specialists at Bell Pottinger, a UK-based PR firm hired to manufacture outrage in order i.a. to shift public attention away from the corruption in that government associated with state capture. Their campaign was a toxic mix of half-truths and manufactured divisions, designed to mislead the uninformed and manipulate the vulnerable. Its goal was to keep their client (Zuma and his radical wing of the ANC) in control of the ANC and thus of the government. It was aimed at Zuma’s moderate opposition within the ANC and in society in general, who were painted as puppets of white monopoly capital because of their then unwillingness to fully support EWC (which was used as the shibboleth with which to separate the “sheep from the goats”).
Before Bell Pottinger’s interference, the issue of “land theft” and restitution via EWC was not a dominant political theme. Now, Zuma and Malema have elevated EWC to being the prime emotive catchphrase of the moment – if you are for it, then clearly you stand with those dedicated to black rights. If you are against it, then you stand with white interests and serve white monopoly capital…
It is evident from the actions of President Ramaphosa’s ANC that EWC as catchphrase is indeed exerting strong pull among many disaffected black voters, to the extent that the ANC moderates this time round feel that they can no longer ignore it – not if they want (as they evidently need to do) to deprive the EFF/MKP of what is apparently a very appealing plank in their radical platforms. Therefore, EWC in the Ramaphosa ANC’s view had to be allowed to feature as also being ANC policy, somewhere and somehow, come what may.
We will look in more detail at the political realities and strategies driving this, in our conclusions.
Now, however, one should look at how the new expropriation act in actual fact enables – yet also limits – EWC, so as to have an un-emotional understanding of what its practical effect and application is likely to be / not be. Because South Africa deserves a rational, factual, and honest conversation about land reform – one rooted in data, responsibility, and sustainability – not emotive slogans and conspiracy theories.
WHAT DOES THE NEW EXPROPRIATION ACT ACTUALLY SAY?
A bit of background about the history of the new Expropriation Act is appropriate. The process already started back in 2008, with the bill having gone through many iterations and much debate since. The ANC moderates had earlier slow-rowed the EWC boat, but of late there seems to be an urgency which can only be logically explained on the basis of the threat posed to their parliamentary rule by the MKP & EFF (as demonstrated in hard numbers during the last election).
There is now clearly a perceived need on the part of the Ramaphosa ANC to deprive the opposition on their left, of an important plank in their political platforms. One can imagine the ANC saying to business boardrooms that it is a case of picking once’s poison: do whites really want the MKP/EFF to be able to siphon off further black support from the ANC and to take over government, as a consequence of the ANC not having addressed the land issue so emotive to many blacks?
Expropriation laws are common in practically all countries. These laws are typically focused on the compulsory acquisition of land needed for public purpose (i.e., for building a new railroad or some other such public infrastructure). What is distinct in the new South African Expropriation Act is that it now goes beyond land expropriation for public purpose, to include also public interest (keeping in mind that the 1996 Constitution explicitly defines a national commitment to land reform as being in the public interest, with section 25 of the Constitution furthermore expressly stating that expropriation with nil compensation may be justified and valid under certain circumstances – so that, in principle, these notions are, therefore, not entirely new to either political debate or to South African law).
There are, however, very important caveats regarding EWC built into the new Expropriation Act. The first is that EWC can only apply to expropriation for public interest and not for public purpose (meaning that, if your land is taken for a public purpose such as building on it some publicly needed infrastructure, then you must still be equitably compensated financially, for value). In effect, EWC can thus likely only be used for land reform, and then only regarding not compensating for the value of the bare land component as such (i.e., not to disown you of other real rights attached to the land, such as water or mineral rights). Even then, again, subject to strict limitations.
The well-known law firm Werksmans describes it thus:
“…the Expropriation Act now makes provision for “just and equitable” compensation. The concept of “just and equitable” compensation was introduced already in our law 29 years ago when the Constitution was promulgated. Just and equitable compensation is made provision for in section 25(3) of the Constitution, and lists factors to be taken account in calculating just and equitable compensation…
“Factors that must be taken into account in the calculation of just and equitable compensation are the current use of the property, the history of its acquisition, improvements made in the property, if there was any State investment made on the property and the purpose of the expropriation. The outcome of the application of the just and equitable method of calculation, is based on the facts of each case. Whilst it may be possible to arrive at nil compensation, it would only be extremely rare circumstances that would enable nil compensation. It is also arguable that expropriation without compensation as a concept, may be susceptible to a constitutional challenge.
“In section 12(3), the Expropriation Act lists four circumstances in which it may be just and equitable for EWC to be applied (i.e., when nil may be paid). These include where the land is held for speculative purposes and is not being used by the owner; where the land is held by an organ of state that is not using it for its core functions and the organ of state is not likely to require the land for its future activities, and the organ of state acquired the land for no consideration; where an owner has abandoned the land by failing to exercise control over it despite being reasonably capable of doing so; and where the market value of the land is equivalent to or less than the present value of direct state investment or subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the land.”
The full Werksmans article can be accessed by clicking on this link:
Expropriation Act: Deconstructed and Demystified – Werksmans
To any legal analyst, it is thus evident that the promoters of this new law (the Ramaphosa ANC) felt the need to engage in a very delicate political balancing act – on the one hand, clearly making provision for EWC (and trumpeting it), but on the other, circumscribing its application to such an extent that it will likely have very little impact in practice. Why are they feeling obliged to do this? Will it gain them anything among the black voters they seem to be reaching out to with this measure, or is it “too clever by half” and will more likely just further alienate all other interest groups – from the white right to the black left?
What may the implications be for national security – especially when this Act is seen in conjunction with other recent legislation such as the BELA on education, new legislation on private security firms, and the new regulations on race-based labour force quotas promulgated in April 2025 under the country’s Employment Equity legislation, plus the intention to transition to a state-run health system?
CONCLUSIONS:
The new Expropriation Act and its inclusion of the politically charged catchphrase EWC cannot be assessed in isolation. In the South African context, this is not a technical law (as expropriation legislation typically is in other countries) but a highly emotionally charged one – aimed at making a political statement, yet simultaneously trying to circumscribe EWC in the fine print so as to not have the business sector over-react to it…
Being so very clearly political rather than technical, the question from a national security standpoint is: what does the fact that the Ramaphosa ANC felt the need to force through this legislation (and the other recent measures that have caught the headlines) say about where the balance of power currently stands in South Africa’s party politics?
Passing EWC, BELA, state-run national health, more race-based employment quotas (all clearly impacting negatively the pre-existing rights and interests of constituencies to the center and right of the centre-left ANC) make it clear that the Ramaphosa ANC is not trying to acquire electoral support from the political centre or its right.
Its overriding concern is to try and stem the haemorrhaging to its left, to the MKP and EFF. It is trying to do so by not allowing these two parties exclusive ownership of “pro-black/anti-white” catchphrases and appealing political platform planks such as EWC.
The fact that the Ramaphosa ANC feels the need to do this, speaks volumes on where electoral support is trending. It begs the questions: who will succeed Ramaphosa as ANC leader, with what agenda? How cohesive will the “moderate” ANC be, come the next election? How many will feel obliged to jump ship to the MKP?
The ANC had enjoyed full control of government (and the perks derived from that), when they were united under Mandela and Mbeki; they lost their majority because first Malema and then Zuma broke away – not because the DA had grown in support (the DA’s share of voters had actually gone down in 2024). How strong will the pull be by the time that the next election comes around, to try and re-unite the ANC, in order to have their original majority back again, and thereby enjoy the associated perks? After Ramaphosa, who would make – in the eyes of most ANC members – the most natural bedfellows for them: their former comrades now in the MKP and EFF, or the parties of the GNU?
Applying analytical logic, it is clear that turbulent political times may be lying ahead for South Africa. Internationally, because of the ANC-led GNU being seriously at odds with the Trump administration in the USA and thus being deliberately and extensively targeted by the latter. Internally, because the Ramaphosa ANC is seeing its strength among GNU supporting voters weakening to the DA on its centre-right, without itself making much evident headway with voters on its left.
What does this mean, in terms of how the ANC will feel itself obliged to adapt its public political posturing? More than likely, it will keep pushing the ANC left, into more “pro-black/anti-white” policy positions – firstly because blacks form the overwhelming voting demographic, and secondly because its only scope of gaining votes is on its left (the ANC is clearly highly unlikely to win over voters from the centre and right).
What will the security implications be, of such a continued shift to the left? Can the GNU survive? Will there be flashpoints (for example, a resisted farm expropriation without compensation) that could lead to violence? Or will the left-creeping positioning of the ANC cause a repeat of what had happened in places like Zimbabwe, Cuba, Venezuela – a mass exodus of those who had made those countries work, thereby condemning formerly wealthy and infrastructurally well-endowed states to extreme economic and governance / delivery failure? (Especially if measures such as a South African state-run health system becomes reality, with predictable consequences).
Readers can come to their own conclusions about what the new Expropriation Act (and the other new measures mentioned) actually signify about where South Africa is likely headed. We wish to stress that this analysis is not about the merits of party policies – the political platform that the ANC, for example, is shaping for itself for the contests ahead, is evidently very logical, necessary and even desirable (from their point of view), given the position that they find themselves in.
It is also quite evidently somewhat of a Hobson’s choice for those outside the ANC, to try and divine whether the best interest of the country lies in maintaining in place the present governing coalition (and thus accepting that its main anchor, the ANC, need to be allowed to appeal to voters to its left with calibrated measures such as those they are now pushing), because otherwise the EFF / MKP may end up in government…
The basic fact remains that land issues the world over and throughout time, arose because of the high mobility of human beings. In today’s world, humans are exponentially more mobile than before. The greatest risk to any country’s future is, therefore, that those who contribute most significantly to its economic functioning, its tax base and financial solvency, service delivery, and to its ability to feed its people, will start voting en masse with their feet…
