South Africa’s Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party in the \u200cgoverning coalition, went to court on Monday to challenge a land seizure law that U.S. President Donald Trump cited when\u00a0cutting off aid\u00a0to the country last year.<\/p>\n
The case has caused friction with the \u200bbiggest party, the African National Congress, as the country gears up for municipal \u200belections in November.<\/p>\n
The Expropriation Act allows the state to seize land in \u2060the public interest, in some cases without compensating the owner, as part of efforts \u200bto redress the legacy of apartheid.<\/p>\n
It has been the subject of lengthy and often acrimonious \u200bdebate for years, and was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in January 2025. No land has been seized to date.<\/p>\n
The pro-business and mostly white-led DA says the legislation gives the government “vague and \u200bsweeping powers” and it will deter investment.<\/p>\n
ANC SAYS THE LAW IS A MILESTONE<\/strong><\/p>\n Ramaphosa’s ANC, \u200ba former liberation movement, says the legislation is a milestone in its efforts to transform the country’s \u200cracially \u2060unequal economy, in which the white minority still owns most of the private farmland.<\/p>\n Independent political and governance analyst Sandile Swana said the court case was like a “shadowboxing match” in which the two parties would spar over the issue of land reform without their relationship breaking \u200bdown.<\/p>\n South Africa’s government has \u200brejected Trump’s criticisms \u2060of its land reform policies and says the Expropriation Act is comparable to similar laws in many other countries.<\/p>\n The DA’s case will \u200bbe heard along with two other legal challenges launched by groups \u200bpromoting the \u2060interests of Afrikaners, descendants of mostly Dutch settlers who Trump has\u00a0offered refuge, alleging they face discrimination though South Africa vehemently rejects that claim.<\/p>\n The ANC and DA teamed up in the coalition \u2060in \u200b2024 after an election in which the ANC lost \u200bits parliamentary majority for the first time since the end of white minority rule in 1994. Their partnership has \u200bbeen fractious but has remained intact.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source:<\/strong> Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Africa’s Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party in the \u200cgoverning coalition, went to court on Monday to challenge a land seizure law that U.S. President Donald Trump cited when\u00a0cutting off aid\u00a0to the country last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[2103,1643,122],"class_list":["post-21661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-democratic-alliance","tag-donald-trump","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21661"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21664,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21661\/revisions\/21664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}