Land Expropriation May Be Key Issue

While the platforms of South Africa’s ruling ANC and rival COPE pretty much mirror each other, one issue stands out as a possible swing vote in this year’s general election: land expropriation.

The dreaded Expropriation Bill, which was scrapped after an unlikely coaltion formed in opposition against it, seems likely for a comeback in some form should the ANC win this year’s general election. A thinly-veiled socialist platform includes “agricultural input assistance for small-scale farmers” and ANC leader Jacob Zuma has promised to “review the appropriateness of the existing land redistribution program”. Analysts belive this spells an end to the “willing-buyer-willing seller” policy that has been in effect since the so-called turnover of 1994.

On the other hand, draft documents from the COPE platform place commercial agriculture as the answer to issues surrounding the country’s food insecurity. “The priorities for a COPE administration would be to ensure food security through growing the commercial agricultural sector by stimulating productive utilisation of land,” a COPE draft reads.

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