PREVIEW
The ANC faces a careful balancing act as Ramaphosa signs the controversial ‘expropriation without compensation’ bill
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to sign a controversial Expropriation Bill into law is likely to be the first major test to his governing coalition. Signed on 23 January, the new law, which has been in the pipeline for five years, replaces the apartheid era Expropriation Act of 1975 and sets out how the government can expropriate land in the public interest.
The centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA), on which Ramaphosa’s majority relies, has instructed its lawyers to build a case against the bill, stating that the party has ‘serious reservations about the procedure as well as important substantive aspects of the Bill’.
Signing the bill will appeal to the African National Congress’s left and is a clear attempt to win back voters who previously shifted their support to Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party. This shift contributed to the ANC’s worst performance since the end of apartheid in last May’s general election (AC Vol 65 No 19, MK pins its hopes on Shivambu).
The new law allows for expropriation without compensation only where it is ‘just and equitable and in the public interest’, such as in cases where land is not being used or developed, and the ANC faces a careful balancing act in selling the bill without alienating the DA, particularly party leader and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen (AC Vol 65 No 15, The markets bet on Ramaphosa's grand coalition).
Deputy Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Sihle Zikalala has been quick to frame the law as part of the liberation struggle for the black majority in South Africa.
The EFF, however, insists that the bill is a ‘legislative cop-out’ and will not deal with the issue of restitution.
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