JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's ruling ANC said Wednesday it would make land reform a legislative priority ahead of upcoming elections, a move likely to appeal to black voters.
The party said passing new rules governing land claims by those who suffered racial discrimination under Apartheid was the priority before parliament's term ends.
Elections are expected in April or May, although no date has yet been set. The bill would extend the deadline for restitution claims by five years to 31 Dec. 2018 and allow a broader range of claims to be lodged.
The ANC has ruled South Africa for 20 years and currently holds two thirds of the 400 seats in the National Assembly, meaning it can easily drive through the legislation.
The party is under electoral pressure from the newly formed party of ex-ANC firebrand Julius Malema to speed up the transfer of land and wealth to black South Africans.
While there is widespread acceptance of the need to overturn Apartheid injustices, critics of the restitution process say it has been too slow and badly managed.
Around 50 percent of the land already acquired for restitution has not been transferred to the beneficiaries, according to the University of Cape Town's Centre for Law and Society.
There is also a backlog of tens of thousands of claims.
The ANC also ranked seven other priority bills, including those linked to rental housing, labor, and customs and excise.
S. Africa’s ANC to push land reform ahead of elections
S. Africa’s ANC to push land reform ahead of elections
Russian minister visits Cuba as Trump ramps up pressure on Havana
- The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba
HAVANA: Russia’s interior minister began a visit to ally Cuba on Tuesday, a show of solidarity after US President Donald Trump warned that the island’s longtime communist government “is ready to fall.”
Trump this month warned Havana to “make a deal,” the nature of which he did not divulge, or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was ousted by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
“We in Russia regard this as an act of unprovoked armed aggression against Venezuela,” Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev told Russian state TV Rossiya-1 of the US actions after landing in Cuba.
“This act cannot be justified in any way and once again proves the need to increase vigilance and consolidate all efforts to counter external factors,” he added.
The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba.
Russia and Cuba, both under Western sanctions, have intensified their relations since 2022, with an isolated Moscow seeking new friends and trading partners since its invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba needs all the help it can get as it grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades and now added pressure from Washington.
Trump has warned that acting President Delcy Rodriguez will pay “a very big price” if she does not toe Washington’s line — specifically on access to Venezuela’s oil and loosening ties with US foes Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.
On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Victor Koronelli, wrote on X that Kolokoltsev was in Cuba “to strengthen bilateral cooperation and the fight against crime.”
The US chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, meanwhile, met the head of the US Southern Command in Miami on Tuesday “to discuss the situation in Cuba and the Caribbean,” the embassy said on X.
The command is responsible for American forces operating in Central and South America that have carried out seizures of tankers transporting Venezuelan oil and strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats.
- Soldiers killed -
Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the United States since the revolution that swept communist Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
Havana and Moscow were close communist allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war.
During his first presidential term, Trump walked back a detente with Cuba launched by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Thirty-two Cuban soldiers, some of them assigned to Maduro’s security detail, were killed in the US strikes that saw the Venezuelan strongman whisked away in cuffs to stand trial in New York.
Kolokoltsev attended a memorial for the fallen men on Tuesday.
