Rise Mzansi Party Report

RISE Mzansi wants you to believe that 2024 is another 1994 – that this election is a turning point, a chance to reset the country, fix the economy, and finally deliver on the promises of democracy. It’s a good slogan. But here’s the real question: If 1994 didn’t resolve the land question, why should 2024 be any different?

Their People’s Manifesto is packed with progressive language, carefully avoiding the radical rhetoric of the EFF or the bureaucratic paralysis of the ANC. Instead, it frames land reform as part of a bigger restructuring of governance, urban planning, and economic justice. But behind the polished language, this manifesto lays out a very specific approach to land – one that prioritizes redistribution through planning, policy, and regulation rather than direct expropriation.

• Does RISE Mzansi’s land policy empower people, or does it expand government control?
• Does it balance economic growth with land justice, or does it repeat the same mistakes?
• Is this a real turnaround, or just a new way to manage old problems?

The Land Question: RISE Mzansi’s Take

RISE Mzansi sees land reform as a tool for economic justice, not just as a political talking point. Their manifesto outlines a structured, policy-driven approach that avoids extreme measures like mass expropriation without compensation while still acknowledging the need for redistribution.

Their plan rests on three key pillars:

1. Spatial Planning and Land Distribution – Redesigning urban and rural areas to create a fairer distribution of land.
2. Affordable Housing and Urban Restructuring – Making cities more accessible to working-class South Africans.
3. Agricultural Support and Food Security – Using land reform to drive economic growth rather than just symbolic redistribution.

Let’s unpack these one by one.

1. Spatial Planning: A Bureaucratic Land Grab?

One of RISE Mzansi’s biggest land-related proposals is a complete reorientation of spatial planning. They argue that:

• Apartheid-era spatial planning is still intact, keeping black South Africans in townships and informal settlements far from economic opportunities.
• The state must actively reshape cities, using planning tools to allocate land more fairly.
• A mix of government housing and serviced stands will be created to help people gain access to land.

On paper, this sounds great. But here’s the problem:

• Who decides how land is “reallocated” in this new spatial order?
• Does this mean municipalities will have greater power to expropriate land under the new Expropriation Act?
• Will this process empower individuals, or will it simply expand the state’s control over land use?

The real danger here is that, while RISE Mzansi rejects radical land grabs, they fully embrace state-driven land redistribution through planning, zoning, and regulatory intervention. That means landowners could still lose their property—not through direct confiscation, but through legal mechanisms that slowly shift control away from private hands. This is land reform by bureaucracy, not revolution.

2. Affordable Housing: The Right to Own or the Right to Rent?

Housing is a key battleground in land reform, and RISE Mzansi has a lot to say about it.

• They support increasing access to housing in urban centres rather than pushing people to the outskirts of cities.
• They promise to create more affordable housing options closer to economic hubs.
• They emphasize public-private partnerships to make housing development more effective.

But here’s the real question: Will people own their homes, or will they just become long-term tenants in government-controlled housing projects?

A proper land reform strategy should:

• Ensure title deeds are fast-tracked for those who’ve been waiting decades.
• Make it easier for working-class people to buy land, not just rent from the state.
• Prioritize homeownership over state-managed housing developments.

RISE Mzansi talks a lot about housing access, but it’s unclear whether they’re truly committed to increasing private ownership or simply expanding state-controlled housing projects. Because if the latter is the case, then this isn’t land reform—it’s just tenant management on a national scale.

3. Agriculture and Food Security: A Market-Driven Approach?

Unlike other parties that focus on political symbolism in land reform, RISE Mzansi connects land redistribution to economic growth – particularly in agriculture and food security. They promise to:

• Support smallholder farmers and cooperatives.
• Provide affordable capital and modern farming techniques to emerging black farmers.
• Facilitate market linkages between small-scale farmers and major retailers.

This signals a more market-driven approach to land reform, where the focus is not just on who owns the land but on what they can do with it economically.

But again, the devil is in the details:

• Will these farmers truly own their land, or will they operate on state-leased plots?
• Will land reform transfer wealth, or just shift dependence from private landlords to government managers?
• How will the government ensure that support reaches the right people, rather than politically connected elites?

This part of the manifesto is one of RISE Mzansi’s stronger positions, but execution will be everything.

Expropriation: A Silent Land Revolution?

RISE Mzansi avoids using words like “expropriation without compensation”, but they don’t outright reject expropriation either. In fact, their manifesto says:

“We will accelerate spatial planning and land distribution, using lawful expropriation whenever necessary.”

This one sentence carries massive implications.

• What does “whenever necessary” mean?
• Who decides when expropriation is necessary?
• Will landowners have real legal protections, or will this become a convenient excuse to seize property when politically expedient?

By not fully defining the limits of expropriation, RISE Mzansi leaves the door open for municipal land grabs under the new Expropriation Act. That means land reform under their leadership could still involve forced removals and land seizures—just wrapped in legal language instead of revolutionary slogans. RISE Mzansi wants to rebrand land reform as a modern, structured, policy-driven process. Unlike the EFF, they don’t call for mass expropriation. Unlike the ANC, they don’t rely on endless promises with no execution. Instead, they present a technocratic, governance-heavy approach that:

• Uses spatial planning and zoning laws to redistribute land.
• Expands state-managed housing instead of fast-tracking private ownership.
• Pushes for agricultural development, but without fully guaranteeing land security for new farmers.
• Leaves the door open for expropriation when “”

This is a different approach to land reform, but it still raises the same fundamental question:

Are South Africans being set up to own their land, or will they simply be managed by a more efficient version of the same old system? Because if all this manifesto does is move land from private landlords to government administrators, then the land question remains unanswered. And 2024 will be no different from 1994.