Hi, welcome to my Poliseries: an exploration of the vision each parliamentary party has for South Africa’s future. The topic I explore in this regard is land reform. In this report, I discuss the Congress of The People (COPE): another of the ANC’s bastard children which, like all before it, was born out of a sense of betrayal felt by the faction that would later form it. Another child begotten of the party’s infidelity which, this time, it committed when it recalled Thabo Mbeki in September 2008. Founded by Mosiuoa Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa and Mluleki George, COPE acknowledges inequality between our country’s ethnic stakeholders as central to their division which, in turn, is the underlying disease that is our many symptomatic social ills.
Even so, the party’s view on expropriation without compensation (EWC), for all the land reform program’s pillars (restitution, redistribution, and security of land tenure), is that it be applicable only on barely-to-unproductive land. This, in its view that the “new start” it prescribes conserve the sanctity of the constitution which it deems the bridge needed to bring us all closer together. I do not see how this works well when considering expropriation for restitution purposes since this pillar of land reform focuses on giving back plots of land specific in their geographic placement. If said land is highly productive, then its expropriation is to be compensated, presumably by the taxpayer, since not much information is given on how compensation of expropriation is to be funded. This gives me an indication of a lack of respect for justice by the party, seeing that its government is willing to buy that which was not bought but robbed from its rightful owners.
It is my position that all land expropriation for restitution cases not be compensated due to their nature: that of historical dispossession. Restitution, as I understand it, is reverse dispossession; buying that land back seems to defeat the point as the previous dispossessors still earn financial value from past injustice. COPE does not pay much attention to this pillar though, instead, grounding its land reform programme more on redistribution: via rural and urban area development; and land tenure: via its ardent support for traditional leadership. Regarding these two pillars of land reform, excluding the unique details of each possible case, I find their limiting of EWC to specific types of land workable.
COPE’s redistributive land reform efforts focus on rural and urban areas in ways similar to approaches by parties previously discussed; most noticeable being the DA due to COPE’s name-dropping of the High-Level Panel Report (HLPR) whose recommendations it intends to action. Rural area development which centers on agricultural training, entrepreneurship and support; a partnership with the private sector wherein it is offered incentives to safeguard our food security by further expanding production; government support services and private sector mentorship to newly established farms will encourage entrepreneurship which, together with the expansion of those already established, will create much-needed jobs for economic growth. Its initiatives on land tenure, on the other hand, seem to conflict with its stated support for the panel report which itself criticizes traditional leadership as often abusive of power and an obstacle to rural economic development.
The party not only expresses its ardent support for traditional leaders but openly plans to bolster their power. It sees a role they play that is important in the proper functioning of our constitutional democracy. Imagine that: an autocratic monarchical governance system seen to not only have a place within one democratic but also be regarded as not being at odds with the latter’s constitutional principles. Central to uplifting, economically, rural communal areas, is individual land tenure security; COPE does not explicitly say that its government will grant communal land-dwellers access to tenure security; it simply says that that access will be made available to rural and traditional communities. Again, it is not clear here whether said access is for individual community members or whole communities as represented by their monarchs. Given the party’s intended relationship with them, I would guess the latter.
Urban area development efforts will be characterised by the reversal of racial inequalities brought about by Apartheid’s legacy of discriminative spatial planning. Development of townships into bustling towns by renovating and maintaining arteries and associated transport systems that connect them to cities. I can imagine making the transporting of goods to these areas easier hence cheaper by making roads wider, encouraging entrepreneurship to drive economic activity within them. Considering that most, if not all, townships are situated just outside cities and, I presume, are not on traditional/communal land, traditional leaders are not an obstructive factor in granting security of land tenure access to their dwellers. And, given that reversing spatial inequality involves granting equitable geographical access to societal resources, in this case – economic inclusion, low-cost housing in urban areas, as areas of resource concentration, has become even more important. COPE plans to establish support programs aimed at assisting the further development of townships and individuals in accessing affordable housing.
I find that I do not have much to say about COPE because it does not differentiate itself well enough from its competitors. Reading the party’s manifesto, the problems it highlights and solutions it proposes read as shadows of those proposed by its competitors; thus, most of what I would say has already been said. I am surprised by its stand on traditional leaders though; I think it is the first party I’ve reported on to state, blatantly, that traditional leaders in no way impede on their ‘subjects’ constitutional rights while, in the same breath, committing to implement the HLPR’s recommendations which were very critical of traditional power structures concerning their role in the land reform question. All-in-all, his party did not stand out to me; like a few others, it settled to being one of the many copies of other parties – the DA in particular, thus its relevance and reason to exist is lost on me.