40 Middle East and Africa The EconomistJanuary 27th 20182 probably be minor. And abuses continue:
on January 20th government forces killed
at least seven people at a religious festival.
More significant isthe power struggle
within the EPRDF, a coalition of four ethni-
cally-based parties. The Tigrayan People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF) has long wielded
influence disproportionate to the number
of Tigrayans, who are about 6% of the pop-
ulation. But this may change. The Oromo
People’s Democratic Organisation, which
is also part of the ruling coalition, was seen
for years as a puppet of the TPLF.Yetithas
rebranded itself as a populist, quasi-oppo-
sition movement. Under Lemma Megersa,
its charismatic new leader, it has adopted
many of the protesters’ demands, includ-
ing the release of political prisoners.
The embattled prime minister, Haile-
mariam Desalegn, may soon resign. If so, a
successor mustbe found before the EPRDF
congress scheduled for March, but sure to
be postponed. Many in Oromia want it to
be Mr Lemma, the country’s most popular
politician. Yet the EPRDFis bitterly at odds
over the succession. Fetsum Berhane, a
sympathetic commentator, wonders
whether it has enough zeal to reform. “I’m
not sure anybody is fighting over any ide-
als or issues except power,” he says. 7H
ANNES BOOYENS, clad in the khaki
shorts and shirt of the Afrikaner farm-
er, shows off tidy rows of trees hanging
heavy with grapefruits, soon to be plucked
for export. Hezekiel Nkosi, the chairman of
the Moletele Communal Property Associa-
tion, which owns the land and employs Mr
Booyens, nods approvingly. “We are hap-
py,” Mr Nkosi says. “We need the best tech-
nology, the best farm managers. Other-
wise this is a fruitless operation.”
The Moletele people were forced from
this land, a picturesque corner of South Af-
rica’s Limpopo province, mainly in the
1950s and 60s. They got back 7,000 hect-
ares of citrus and mango farms in 2007
after a legal claim but struggled to run
them. One of the farms collapsed. Mole-
tele leaders went looking for help. The Vu-
melana Advisory Fund, a non-profit that
helps land reform projects, appointed ad-
visers to develop a commercial partner-
ship. The Moletele community now has
access to capital and expertise. Young peo-
ple are being trained so they can run the
farms in future. “The best way was to
partner with those that have the skills,” MrNkosi says.
Under colonial rule and then apart-
heid, black South Africans were systemati-
cally pushed off the land. Whites still own
much of it. Righting this historical injustice
has been a creakingly slow process over 24
years of democracy. The government
promised to transfer 30% of white-owned
farmland to blacks by1999; mostestimates
reckon it has only transferred 10%. This
dawdling pace, combined with a stagnant
economy and rising unemployment (it re-
cently hit 37%), provides fertile ground for
populist politicians. Loudest has been the
Economic Freedom Fighters, a thuggish op-
position party appealing to poor blacks
with promises of nationalised banks and
the confiscation of white-owned land.
That, in turn, is pushing the ruling African
National Congress (ANC) to sharpen its
rhetoric. At a conference in December the
partyadopted a policy of changing the
constitution to allow it to confiscate land
without compensation.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC’s business-
friendly new leaderand its candidate in
presidential elections in 2019, has cautious-
ly tried to walk a tightrope between radi-
cals in his own party and economic catas-
trophe. Expropriation could “make this
country the garden of Eden”, he has said,
but with big caveats: itmust notunder-
mine the economy, agricultural produc-
tion or food security.
That is code for not copying Robert Mu-
gabe, the former president of neighbour-
ing Zimbabwe. When Mr Mugabe started
grabbing white-owned commercial farms
in 2000, he destroyed far more than a suc-
cessful agricultural industry. He also
smashed what was once one of southern
Africa’s most diversified economies. Min-
ing, tourism and manufacturing all col-
lapsed within a few years.
For all its fiery rhetoric, the ANCgovern-
ment has shown remarkably little vigour
in using the laws it already has. Its alloca-
tion for buying land for redistribution has
slumped to less than 0.1% of the national
budget. And it is sitting on as many as
4,000 farms that it has bought but not yet
handed over to black owners.The government’s failures do not stop
there. Many of the farms that have been
handed over have since failed because the
new owners do not have the skills needed
to run large commercial farms. As much as
70% of the estimated 8m hectares of land
transferred by the state since the end of
apartheid is now fallow.
Instead offixing its shortcomings, the
government is exacerbating them. In re-
cent years it has stopped transferring own-
ership of land to black farmers because it
frets they may sell it to whites. Instead it
now leases the land to black tenants. With-
out assets to borrowagainst, these new
farmers find it difficult to get capital.
Yet if done well, land reform could
salve open wounds. The question is how
to do it well. Peter Setou, the chief execu-
tive of the Vumelana Advisory Fund, says
that partnerships between private inves-
tors and communities that are given land
seem to work. But confusion around the
ANC’s policy on land expropriation deters
would-be investors. “We cannot have this
level of uncertainty,” he says.
Under another model, known as the
50/50 framework, the government buys
land and leases it back to a company co-
owned by the farmer and farm workers.
Andrew Braithwaite, a fifth-generation
farmer, took part in a project that saw long-
time workers on his sugar cane farm in
KwaZulu-Natal province become co-own-
ers of a farming business. “People feel they
have something to lose,” he says. “It adds
stability to the nation.”
It isn’t just a matter of farms changing
hands. Mr Ramaphosa says that land
owned by government departments and
municipalities should be released for
housing. That would make it easier for peo-
ple to move to cities, where the jobs are.
As it is, farming generates about 2% of
GDP. Voters may like the idea of land redis-
tribution, but not as much as they want
good jobs in the city. That is even true for
those who were kicked off their land dur-
ing apartheid: most of those who have
lodged claims for restitution have asked
the courts to give them cash as compensa-
tion instead offarms. 7Land in South AfricaDreams of fields
HOEDSPRUIT
South Africa gets land reform wrongWho’s the boss?
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