By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The white-dominated second largest party in South Africa’s coalition government, the Democratic Alliance, on Monday filed a suit in the court, challenging a land seizure law that U.S. President Donald Trump cited when cutting off aid to the country last year.
The case has caused friction within the biggest party, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC), as the country gears up for municipal elections in November.
The Expropriation Act allows the state to confiscate land in the public interest, in some cases without compensating the owner, as part of efforts to redress the illegality of the apartheid era.
It has been a subject of years of lengthy debate. Ramaphosa had in January last year signed the Act into law, but no land has been seized since then.
The pro-business DA says the legislation gives the government “vague and sweeping powers” which has the tendency to deter investment.
But the ANC denies the allegation, saying the law is a milestone in its efforts to transform the country’s racially unequal economy, in which the white minority still owns most of the private farmland.
South Africa’s government has rejected Trump’s criticisms of its land reform policies and says the Expropriation Act is comparable to similar laws in many other countries.
The DA’s case will be heard along with two other legal challenges launched by groups promoting the interests of Afrikaners, descendants of mostly Dutch settlers who Trump has offered refuge, alleging they face discrimination though South Africa vehemently rejects that claim.
The ANC and DA teamed up in the coalition in 2024 after an election in which the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since the end of white minority rule in 1994.
Their partnership has been fractious but has remained intact.
