ANC Youth League called before Congress expropriation without compensation

South Africa land reform debate
ANC Youth League called before Congress expropriation without compensation
By Christian Selz, Cape Town
Less than three weeks before the five-yearly party congress program of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa boils the long repressed discussion of land reform back on. The impetus was the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). Their Vice President Ronald Lamola threatened white farm owners in the packaged with a warning message attacks ", as in Zimbabwe", they should not voluntarily hand over land to poor blacks. Gwede Mantashe, ANC Secretary General and chairman of the South African Communist Party (SACP), rejected it as a "rabid polemic." The ANC party conference will deal in detail with the issue of land, expropriation without compensation as required by the Youth League, were not consistent with the principles of the parent party.

But the fact is that the current progress of land reform within the ANC for disappointment and criticism provides. 6.8 million hectares of land were returned to the government's program since 1994 - just 27 percent of the 2014 expiring 20-year plan target set. About 80 percent of the usable agricultural land are also more in the hands of whites, make up only nine percent of the population. "We warn prioritize further the greed at the expense of the majority and repeat the concerns of the Vice President that the ANC or ANCYL may not be able to stem the tide of the speed of change to stop disaffected, desperate and landless millions of South Africans" , presented by the Youth League in a press release on Wednesday.

first serious test for Zuma

Small turnout for the election to congress of the ANC President shall end of the year

Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president since 2009, has to face re-election in December, the party leader of the African National Congress (ANC). Only the secure him the post of head of state. Starting today, ANC delegates prepare the electoral party end of the year before in Mangaung.

Kgalema Motlanthe (left) and Jacob Zuma

One focus of the congress will be the demand of the youth league of the ANC and some provincial leaders to nationalize the mining industry. Before the meeting, delegates also had expressed South Africa's second largest trade union NUMSA for the nationalization of strategic sectors of the economy. A team of economic experts that examined the experiences of other countries, the ANC delegates report. It is expected that the majority of nationalization - especially without compensation, as required by the Youth League - rejects.

Eagerly, the discussion about the new ANC strategy paper is expected. Zuma's deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, had already criticized the draft. Motlanthe described the document entitled "Second Transition" (second transition) as unclear and fraught with Marxist jargon. Zuma and his Secretary General Gwede Mantashe, was created under his leadership, the document defended the paper, however. In your opinion, would require a "second reconstruction phase," because the social context has changed over the years immediately after the end of apartheid. At that time, had with the old elites and the Western donors, who stated at the time the sound, compromises are closed, which prevented the reduction of poverty and unemployment, in part. More state control than in the past in a mixed economy, in dealing with social problems - that's the central message of the paper.