The Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania is the latest party to join Cyril Ramaphosa’s coalition arrangement. [Picture: Facebook/MyPAConline]
The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania has joined the government of national unity (GNU), but with the intention to counter “right-wing” parties. It also wants to push for the Constitution to be changed, to fast-track land redistribution.
Speaking in an interview on Salaamedia on Thursday, the party’s secretary general Ntsiri “Apa” Pooe made the party’s intentions clear.
“We believe that we should not allow the current setup to move towards right-wing-leaning tendencies. We will be able to push the narrative towards the left,” he declared.
With its two seats in the national assembly, the PAC wished to bring land redistribution to the top of the agenda.
Its policies are in sharp contrast to those of the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA), which previously opposed the Expropriation Bill that sought to expropriate land without compensation.
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Changing the Constitution
Left-leaning parties like the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) decided to stay out of the African National Congress’s (ANC) government of national unity. All parties who respected the rule of law were invited to join.
But the PAC now wants the Constitution to be changed. Pooe said the Constitution, in its current form, protected the landed White minority. Until this was changed, he said, Africans were yet to achieve freedom.
“Without the land being returned to African people, there can never be true freedom. African people in South Africa have been landless; the land remains in the hands of our oppressors, of our former colonisers,” he said.
“As the PAC, we maintain that the Constitution of this country guarantees property rights to the land thieves and as a result, participating in this new government of national unity will enable us to change the Constitution and ensure that the land returns to African people.”
Just last week, the PAC aligned itself with the Progressive Caucus, a group of smaller parties opposed to the GNU. Its departure now leaves the Caucus with just the EFF, Al Jama-Ah, United African Transformation, and United Democratic Movement. The GNU, meanwhile, comprises the ANC, DA, PAC, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Patriotic Alliance (PA) and GOOD Party.
