Opposition parties want land expropriation without compensation back on the table

South Africa’s main opposition parties plan to revive a bid to amend the constitution to allow for land to be expropriated without compensation.

Former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party, the Economic Freedom Fighters and other leftist groups will bring the proposal before the National Assembly, MKP parliamentary leader John Hlophe told reporters in Cape Town on Thursday.

“We shall fight for expropriation of land without compensation for equitable redistribution,” he said.

The parties have labelled themselves as a progressive caucus in opposition to the coalition government that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress formed with mainly centrist parties last month.

The ANC was forced to seek an alliance after May elections stripped it of its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power three decades ago, largely because of the support garnered by Zuma’s party.

The leftist caucus holds 102 of the 400 seats in parliament, and its bid to change the constitution would fail unless it secured support from rivals.

Amendments need the backing of two-thirds of lawmakers, and if the caucus failed to get the help of the ANC, the country’s largest political party, it would enable the leftist parties to cast the party as anti-progressive and potentially erode its electoral support further.

The ANC’s share of the national vote fell to 40.2% in the May 29 election, compared with 57.5% in 2019.

A bid to amend the constitution failed in the last parliament because the ANC and EFF, who collectively held the required two-thirds majority, couldn’t agree on the modalities of the legislation.

The ANC wanted the constitution to stipulate the specific conditions under which expropriation might take place, while the EFF favoured the wholesale nationalisation of land with the state as the custodian.

Hlophe, who earlier this year became the first judge in democratic South Africa to be impeached by parliament, also said the caucus plans to revisit a bid to impeach Ramaphosa over the so-called cash-in-sofa scandal.

Two years ago, lawmakers quashed an advisory panel’s report that found the president may have breached the constitution over his handling of the theft of at least $580,000 stashed in a couch at his game farm.

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