ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula. Photo: Luba Lesolle/Gallo Images
The ANC believes there is no longer a justification for chanting the anti-apartheid slogan “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” but will also “not water it down to kiss the boer”, the party’s secretary general Fikile Mbalala said on Friday.
“The focus for us now is transformation and transformation of the economy for the best interest of others,” he said on the sidelines of the party’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting in Boksburg.
The meeting was expected to discuss, among other issues, the national budget, as well as the country’s deteriorating relationship with the United States, partly over what the Trump administration has characterised as the persecution of white South Africans.
“We can not prescribe to other political parties what they must sing, what they must chant and what they can not chant and that’s where we stand in that matter,” Mbalula said.
He spoke a day after the constitutional court dismissed an application by right-wing Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum for leave to appeal previous rulings that Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader president Julius Malema‘s public chanting of “Kill the Boer” did not amount to hate speech.
In 2022, the equality court dismissed AfriForum’s complaint against the EFF and Malema for singing the chant on multiple occasions between 2016 and 2019. Malema had previously testified that the chants against white apartheid rule “should not be interpreted literally, but within the context of the struggle and the political message that it sought to agitate”.
In its ruling on Thursday, the constitutional court said it had concluded that Afriforum’s latest application “should be dismissed as it bears no reasonable prospects of success”.
On Friday Mbalula said the decision of the court should be respected, adding: “As the ANC, we are not chanting ‘kill the boer, kill the farmer’ because we don’t believe it is relevant at the present moment, but we would not stop others from chanting”.
“It is not illegal as it is now defined by the constitutional court. As the ANC, we wouldn’t chant that slogan — nor would we water it down to ‘kiss the boer’ — because when we chanted that slogan, it had a particular meaning.”
Mbalula also addressed ongoing discussions in the government of national unity about the recently tabled national budget, which coalition partners such as the Democratic Alliance (DA) and opposition parties like the EFF have vowed to vote down in parliament, over a proposed hike in VAT.
This is despite Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana on 12 March scaling back his proposed VAT increase to one percentage point to be applied over two financial years, half of what he had initially sought in his abandoned initial budget review in February.
On Friday, Godongwana told finance committees in parliament that the DA had previously written a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa accepting the VAT increase in exchange for the scrapping of recently passed controversial laws such as the Expropriation Act.
Asked for comment on this, DA spokesperson Karabo Khakhau accused Godongwana of negotiating in bad faith.
“It is not a secret that the DA has been negotiating with the ANC over measures to remove obstacles to the creation of economic growth and jobs and create an enabling environment to move us off the high debt, low growth trajectory and onto a path to prosperity,” she said.
“We have demanded a series of growth enhancing reforms and a plan to lower taxes over the next three years. That’s the only thing that can work to bring relief for tax.
“It is a pity that the finance minister, who made a hack job of the process in the first place, is now trying to negotiate in bad faith through the media when we are doing so in good faith through the channels created for this without being honest about the fact that we called for the reduction of tax in the next three years.”
Asked for his comment on the negotiations, Mbalula said the DA had not written to the ANC, but added that it was possible the letter had been sent to Ramaphosa.
“I can confirm that there have been engagements on the question of the budget at the level of parliament between the ANC and other parties that will include the DA,” he said.
“At the end of this, we will assert the matter guided by the NEC. Should anything arise from the NEC from its wisdom in terms of the budget issue, we will communicate that. It is absolutely important that the budget must be passed.”
Discussion about this post