South Africa's Expropriation Act is going to be facing legal challenges in court this week, where the Democratic Alliance (liberal party), Afriforum (an Afrikaner interest group), and IRR (free market libertarians) are targeting different sections of the act and the process by which it was passed. They want it to be found to be struck down as unconstitutional and irrational.
One of the interesting things about this case is its political implications for the Democratic Alliance, which is the topic of this article.
The Minister of Public Works is responsible for the implementation of the Act. This is currently Dean Macpherson, of the DA, pictured in the main photo for this article. He is listed as one of the respondents in the matter and will have to defend the act against the challenges brought by his own party, the DA.
In the past, Macpherson has defended the Act against critics in public, most notably on a panel at a big agricultural convention. His defense of the act attracted criticism from DA voters, who were alarmed at the idea of a DA minister defending the idea of expropriation without compensation. This led to the DA having to make a statement clarifying they still opposed it.
As someone who supports the DA and opposes the Expropriation Act, I like the fact that a DA minister is responsible for its implementation. If this law is going to exist at all, I'd rather have its initial implementation being done by someone from a liberal, pro-market party. But many DA voters do not think this way. They get more upset, rather than assured, when ANC policies they oppose from the pre-coalition era are implemented by DA ministers. They feel as if the DA is selling them out, and have even proposed that the DA should rather leave the coalition than implement these policies.
The DA is already in trouble with important parts of its voter base. Middle class Cape Tonians are upset about affordability, and farmers about the handling of foot-and-mouth. So this court case will be important both because it deals with critical questions around property rights, but also because it threatens to place the DA again in a situation where a prominent minister seems to be "selling out" DA voters, opening the party is open to attacks from the right, just 4 months before elections.
Posted by Top_Lime1820