The prosperous and peaceful Western Cape resort town of Hermanus was rocked by violent protests in 2018, led by Gcobani Ndzongana, a political activist who helped to create the Economic Freedom Fighters. His LAND Party has grown in the five years since then, a highlight being the victory in a by-election over the ANC. Ndzongana has had a turbulent time since, experiencing a home invasion and narrowly missing assassination when the bullet meant for him killed his driver. His determination is unbowed and in this interview with now Hermanus-based investigative journalist and author Chris Steyn, he shares the party’s intentions and explains how he sees the 2024 Election panning out.
Some extracts from the interview:
Gcobani Ndzongana on the LAND party’s intentions
Our intention is not to make this country ungovernable, but to say if we want land, the land must come back. Yes, we believe that there must be a people’s referendum, because we believe it’s the only thing that can be an answer to this land question that we have in South Africa, as long as we still are dilly-dallying and trying to run away from this fact of the land question, we’re going to have a big problem in the future. So we don’t want to take land by force from people. We want a referendum. So South Africans must decide if the land must be returned or not. It must come from the people, not from us as political leaders.
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His views on BEE and minimum wage
If we want to build South Africa to be prosperous, we must bring people together and not create enemies, there are still people who are fragile from the past. Of course, there are certain rightwing groups who are using parties like ours as a sort of ‘swart gevaar,’ a ‘rooi gevaar,’ to scare white community sectors, saying: ‘These people are going to take these things from you, they are going to do this to you, be careful of these people, these people are dangerous, they want a civil war.’
We believe that BEE has failed. We believe that you need proper leadership in South Africa, that you’ll make the environment much more conducive for everyone to prosper, so that when young people want to have businesses ran by white, coloured, black, they must easily be supported by the government so that they can start those businesses. So if you are going to start to use the issue of blacks and coloureds, like with BEE, then you are starting to scare and divide the community and the society. Now you’re going to have a fragmented society that is divided, and you’re going to have a society that can cause a civil war at any given time.
So we don’t believe in BEE. We believe that in prosperity, we can prosper. You can uplift people, give people the opportunity to work for themselves so that they can prosper, and support them financially – if they are farmers, subsidise them.
We don’t believe in the issue of minimum wage. It’s a wrong concept. It must be a choice. If I want to work, I must work. It must be my choice. I must not be forced by circumstances because I’m poor, I’m unable to do this. Make the country have access to everyone so that those who want to go to business can go to business. Those who want to go to work. They must go to work. That is what we believe. So that is why we don’t believe in the issue of minimum wage, because if you’re talking about minimum wage, you still support the issue of labour, saying that there must be upper class and there must be a lower class. And we don’t believe that.
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On his thoughts on next years general election
Very interesting, I was listening to the leader of the opposition, the DA. I think they’re missing the point. In fact, they are playing into the hands of the ANC. And I can tell you, they’re just working on a strategy to work with the ANC. For them, it’s about removing the ANC out of power which means they don’t have a strategy. They have absolutely no strategy to remove the ANC. I believe at the LAND party, we’ve got a very sophisticated strategy and we have already shared that document. We already came up with the document last year in our plenum in July, and we shared it with some of the left progressive movements – this is a strategy to dislodge these people and make sure that we don’t allow this country to go back to the nationalist racist party.
In fact, even the ANC must come out of power. If you say you want to remove the ANC but you still want to see yourself as the head of that campaign, then I’m telling you you’re not going to win it. So first of all, sacrifice yourself and say, ‘No, it’s not about me. I can be out of the picture, but this is the idea that I have.’
I don’t want to be in parliament. But the fact is that this ANC must get out of power. That is the strategy, that is what must be in the mind of all political leaders, particularly in the opposition, not leaders who are obsessed with being in power.
It must be a matter of principle that leaders are saying: ‘The ANC is causing problems in this country, and as long as they remain in power, we are going to see a very difficult situation in this country.’
The poor will rise against the rich, and we will end up having an unled revolution in this country.
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