The National Assembly has rejected the ANC’s bid to expropriate land without compensation, denying the ruling party a two-thirds majority required to amend the constitution to that effect.
The governing ANC has 230 seats in parliament, and required at least 267 votes to pass the bill. Of the MPs present in the house and on the virtual platform, 145 members voted against the bill and 204 were in support.
That means the debate on section 25 is over unless the ANC secures the support of the EFF — it effectively wants all land nationalised — or if it gains a two thirds-majority in the House of Assembly in the next general elections, scheduled for 2024.
On Tuesday, lawmakers debated and voted on a bill tabled by the ad hoc committee that is tasked with redrafting the proposed wording of section 25 of the constitution dealing with property.
The proposed amendment to the constitution, which dates back to 2018, was meant to explicitly allow for the expropriation of land without compensation, as a legitimate option to tackle skewed land-ownership patterns dating back to the apartheid and colonial eras.
The ANC had been banking on the EFF’s support to secure a two-thirds threshold. The party, a breakaway from the ANC, has 44 seats in the 400-member parliament, making it the third-largest party. The DA is the second largest party with 84 seats.
Fundamental difference
The ANC and EFF differ fundamentally on the issue of state custodianship of land, and compensation. The ANC opposes any form of nationalisation, but wants to ensure security of tenure and supports a mixture of private, state-owned and communal land. The EFF maintains the amendment should categorically state that all land be placed under state custodianship without compensation.
Opening the debate for the ANC, Mathole Motshekga, who led the ad hoc committee on land reform, said the main objective of the proposed amendment was to eradicate “the original sin in which indigenous African people were violently dispossessed of their land by British and Dutch settlers.
“The amendment bill before us seeks to address the inhumane crime against the African majority,” Motshekga said, adding that opposition parties were ganging up on the ANC in the hope of gaining an upper hand before the 2024 general elections.
“We are not worried and confident that with or without them [opposition parties] the ANC will make land available to the people ... without [which] ... the triple challenge of unemployment, poverty, inequality will continue,” he said.
“Those not supporting the bill are saying this should continue. These unholy coalitions will collapse and the people of SA will come back to the ANC which will ensure we reverse the social ills.”
Maintaining the status quo
EFF leader Julius Malema said the ANC was concerned with “maintaining the status quo and the interests of white land owners”.
“The bill tabled today will take African people many steps back ... state custodianship will ensure strong security of tenure for the majority of people. If this bill is allowed to pass, it will undermine struggles of black people,” he said.
“This process is a failure, and the ANC is captured by white monopoly capital,” Malema added. He repeated the party’s stance that there be no compensation paid for expropriated land and that the state should be the custodian of all land.
The EFF argues that the state should own all land on behalf of all people. While this could be seen as a form of nationalisation, the party contends that under custodianship the state won’t be able to change user rights at will “because it will not own the land fully”.
