Discourses of land reform legitimation and electioneering in Southern Africa

1 Introduction

Colonialism and apartheid led to widespread land dispossession, forcing indigenous populations in many Southern African states off their ancestral lands. Post-colonial governments have struggled to address these historical injustices, often prioritizing economic growth over land restitution. Land reform has become a rallying cry for marginalized communities (Mfune, 2022) that are seeking redress for past injustices. We show that land has equally been weaponised by politicians and political organizations from the vast political divide to rally the masses to support them in their bid for political office.

In Africa, land reform has become a potent electoral instrument (Dessalegn, 2009; Manatsha, 2023; Mekonnen, 2018). Many indigenous peoples consider the land question to have been at the center of the liberation and armed struggles they engaged in (Fay and James, 2008). Many more feel that the land question has been ignored (Ngang and Paradzai, 2025), resulting in slow to no land restitution. Furthermore, because land use extends beyond residential to productive agricultural and commercial purposes, making it an issue applicable to the vast majority of populations in nations, it is thus an important resource to significant pockets of society. While little is known “…about when and how office-seeking elites are able to exploit communal grievances for electoral purposes, and how the effects of such appeals may vary across different segments of the target audience” (Horowitz and Klaus, 2018), our paper argues that politicians exploit land reform discourse to mobilize support among rural constituencies, often employing emotive and inflammatory language to tap into historical grievances.

We hold that political actors use language that restates known injustices, rehashes the past, and opens old wounds to keep the land issue on the agenda of the political state. For example, in South Africa, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have made land expropriation without compensation a central point of departure for their political expedience. This has attracted certain pockets of the population to their movement, such as the youth and poor communities. Similarly, in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), which has been the ruling party for nearly five decades now, has utilized land reform rhetoric to legitimize its authoritarian rule, presenting itself as a champion of indigenous and land rights, especially among rural dwellers. This strategy is equally used by Kenya's Jubilee Party since its formation in 2016. We analyze the discourses of several political parties to establish the discursive strategies they use for legitimation of the land issue.

Analyzing discourse, instances of language use by social actors (Jaworski and Coupland, 2002), is central to understanding often opaque but also transparent relationships, power, and control (Wodak, 2002). Legitimation is the process by which discourse is used to give credence and authority to certain subjects, such as political transformation (Andersen, 2012), state building, and fragility (Unsworth, 2010). Electioneering, which includes all forms of political communication that lead to the exercise of democratic power by the electorates (Chukwudi et al., 2024), is very central to legitimation.

Primarily, global attention to land reform in Southern Africa was initiated by the Zimbabwean land reform processes in the year 2000. Arguably, the Zimbabwean processes, and model, have been the point of reference for any discussions on land reform in Southern Africa. In essence, what the Zimbabwean land reform model did, particularly the Fast-Track Land Reform Program model, was to agitate the rest of the region regarding what is the best approach to use in land reform. Currently, and related to the Zimbabwean land reform in the early 2000s and its influence on the region, the main fever is around the concepts of expropriation of land without compensation and eminent domain. However, as some scholars indicate, the wisest thing one can say to the Southern Africa region is that the act of seizing land is not merely imprudent, but it is also complex, with far reaching costs as experienced in Zimbabwe (Sihlobo and Kirsten, 2018).

This study thus contributes to knowledge by analyzing discourses of land dispossessions, land ownership, land use, and land reform and electioneering in selected countries in Southern Africa. We submit that not much research attention has been paid to discourses of land reform in Southern Africa, a gap that this study sought to fill. The rest of the article is structured thus: below, a brief review of literature is done. This is followed by methods, data presentation and analysis, discussion of findings, and conclusion.

2 Literature

While substantial research has been done on land in Southern Africa, there has not been much that focuses on the discursive choices of social players on land and land transfer (du Toit, 2024). Extant research focuses on analyzing policy and the economic attributes of land practices. Recent studies have also pointed to this gap. For example, du Toit (2024) emphasizes the “disjuncture between the discourses of policy deliberation and those of contentious politics.” Du Toit submits that debates around land are very technical. Furthermore, PLAAS (Hall, 2016) states that while research on land acquisitions exists, it frames land as agricultural transfers, significantly excluding narratives of those involved or affected. There are Multiple ways that land acquisitions unfold through local narratives and perceptions, particularly in sectors like tourism and conservation. Literature, such as Chilombo (2021), indicates that in Zambia, studies often ignore the discursive strategies and linguistic choices made by social actors in relation to land. We believe that land distribution and land use in Southern Africa is a negotiated phenomenon that necessitates focus of the discourses surrounding land. Political contestation is one area of focus for such discourses, hence our focus on political party manifestos.

Contemporary land discourse is heavily dominated by a pro-poor paradigm, which serves as a framing strategy for diverse political actors across international contexts. This framing projects land reform not merely as a technical transfer of assets, but as a panacea for complex structural issues, including poverty alleviation, social injustice, and marginalization. Scholars, for example James (2000), have shown this projection of discourse around land. However, as Borras and Franco (2010) argue, this discourse often operates alongside broader narratives of land governance. Thus, it shifts the focus from redistributive justice to technical administrative efficiency. Therefore, while the pro-poor rhetoric projects a commitment to benefitting the “rural poor,” it can, in practice, create skewed outcomes that favor the political elites at the expense of the poor dispossessed by colonial land grabs. This suggests disjuncture between the discursive promise and the reality on the ground regarding land.

In South Africa, as indeed in several of its neighbors, a recent study revealed that “land reform in democratic South Africa is construed as a mechanism for rectifying historical social injustices and addressing systemic inequalities, particularly along racial lines because land was expropriated from the black majority during colonization and apartheid” (Mkhabela and Manik, 2024), and, of course, without compensation. This projects the dual discourses of the social and the political as discussed below.

2.1 Social discourse

The social discourse on land hinges on the idea that land reform, be it restitution or redistribution, should aim at redressing past injustices of colonialism, chiefly the land dispossessions that happened in the colonies. In Zimbabwe, for example, one of the urgent needs of the new government in 1980 when the country gained independence from the British was to address “the colonial legacy of disparities in access to production resources, including land” (Mandizadza, 2009). It is arguable that while political expediency was the main cause of the Fast-Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) model that was adopted in Zimbabwe around the year 2000, there is the social side to it caused by frustrations with the failures of the government of Zimbabwe to implement an effective land reform programme for all, including the poor.

Furthermore, the atmosphere within which the FTLRP erupted was that land transfers were long overdue, hence the expedited approach (Bond, 2007). This relates to deep-seated grassroots frustrations over the slow pace of earlier “willing-buyer, willing-seller” approaches adopted by the Zimbabwean government. While the Fast-Track Land Reform Program model saw land being redistributed on partisan lines, Mandizadza's research shows that those who were resettled met their social needs of having a place to stay, owning land, and practicing some subsistence activities that sustained them on a day-to-day basis, though the programme was obviously not packaged in a wide agrarian and development model. Of course, because the beneficiaries who were resettled on commercial farms had subsistence needs, the large-scale commercial needs of the country suffered. This explains why the Zimbabwean land reform is thought of in relation to economic collapse.

In South Africa, Mkhabela and Manik (2024) conclude from analysis of Geography textbooks that the land reform programme in South Africa is very much centered around social justice, specifically the idea of restitution or returning the land to the dispossessed and the poor. The discourses on land in South Africa are also closely related to rights (Sibanda, 2001) and like in all former colonies, it is aimed at redressing past injustices and discriminations. Most of the imbalances in South Africa's land issue stem from the 1913 Natives Land Act. Redressing the past injustices has not been a smooth process, with recent developments in land reform in South Africa resulting in strained diplomatic and trade relations with the United States, especially as the new Act (Act 13 of 2024) seeks, partly, “…to identify certain instances where the provision of nil compensation may be just and equitable for expropriation in the public interest…”.

From the three-pronged land reform policy that the ANC government assumed in 1994, which comprised land restitution, land tenure reform, and land redistribution, land restitution has achieved a lot of attention and is linked a lot with politics and human rights. Restitution relates to compensation of those dispossessed of their land after 1913. Of course, it is closely related to land redistribution, which seeks to deal with persisting racial imbalances in ownership of land in rural South Africa. See Cliffe (2000) and Lahiff (2003) for foundational discussions of these concepts. The overarching idea is that there simply have not been enough land transfers in South Africa post 1994 (Economic Freedom Fighters, 2024; Lahiff, 2007; uMkhonto weSizwe Party, 2024), and this has continued the repression and oppression of the black people.

As indicated by Hangula (2000), the epitome of land dispossession in Namibia is the early 1900s after the defeat of the indigenous peoples of Namibia in the German- Nama and German-Herero wars. This dispossession of land by the Germans in Namibia was inherited and perpetuated by South Africa from 1915 to 1990 when Namibia got independence from South Africa (Mundia and Haimbili, 2023). As expected and just like in South Africa and in many other countries in the region, in Namibia the land issue is provided for in the constitution. The Constitution of the Republic of Namibia, 1990, both provides for redressing past imbalances, through the government having the power to compulsorily acquire land, and guards against land expropriation without compensation (Mufune, 2010). This speaks to the social discourse around land in Namibia.

2.2 Political discourse

In the political discourse, the government is often presented as a key role player in the implementation of the land reform programme. This is mostly because the government is expected to play a leading role in righting the wrongs of the past, of which landlessness among the poor and previously dispossessed is very key. For example, in Namibia, according to Mundia and Haimbili (2023), while land cannot be expropriated without compensation, the country's land reform hinges a lot on the concept of eminent domain. Eminent domain is the power that a government has for acquiring private property for public use without the owner necessarily agreeing, if the owner is compensated fairly, and the property or land is used for public interest purposes. There are several scholars (McFarland, 2004; Nedzel and Block, 2007; Saginor and Mcdonald, 2009) who have dedicated time to discussing the concept of eminent domain, which is very central to political discourse around land.

Furthermore, the land reform in Namibia has received some criticism from scholars such as Alden and Anseeuw (2016), Dlamini (2014), and Melber (2018). Most of the criticism points at the possibility that there is lack of political will to implement the land reform programmes crafted. Specifically, Alden and Anseeuw (2016) and Hunter (2004) have argued that the lack of political will is related to that the support base for the Southwest Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), the political party that has been in power since 1990, does not come from those parts of the country mostly affected by land dispossessions. In other contexts, such as that of Zimbabwe, politicians have been accused of governing land issues to appease people along political affiliation lines (Chavunduka, 2018; Muchadenyika, 2015). Namibia has also had similar problems (Immanuel, 2015), though probably not to the same extent as Zimbabwe.

In an analysis of election manifestos of South Africa's top three political parties to the country's 2019 elections, Mpofu et al. (2021) found that land is increasingly becoming central to the politics of the main political organizations in the country. This applies to both the ANC and the opposition parties. The same can be said of Namibia, where conflict in the Namibian cabinet on land reform led to the formation of a splinter political party, namely the Landless People's Movement (LPM). In Zimbabwe, the expedited land reform that resulted in land grabs was allowed by the need to appease the electorate (Alexander and McGregor, 2001).

3 The sample

We purposively sampled four countries in Southern Africa. The countries are South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana. What was unique about the four countries and attracted us to them was that they all had elections around the time the study was carried out. Furthermore, the countries are geographically close to each other, with Zimbabwe and Namibia the only pair that do not share a land border with each other.

The African National Congress (ANC) has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. In Botswana, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) ruled the country since independence from the British in 1966 until October 2024, a total of 58 years. Since 1980, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) has been in office to date. Equally, the Southwest Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) has been ruling Namibia since independence from South Africa in 1990. Therefore, the above purposively sampled four long-time ruling political parties presented the study potential data on how liberation movements have dealt with the aspirations of the masses as far as land is concerned. At the time of data collection, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) was still in power.

The purposive sample also included five opposition parties. The opposition parties sampled for the study included Namibia's Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), Zimbabwe's Citizens Coalition for Change (formerly Movement for Democratic Change), and South Africa's Democratic Alliance (DA), Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK), and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Owing to recent land-related conflicts in South Africa, which have spilt into explosive diplomatic relations between South Africa and the US, South Africa is purposely over-represented in the sample.

4 Method and framing

We used a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) lens to engage with the discourses around land in the selected Southern African countries. Interdisciplinary in nature, CDA looks at ways in which language influences power dynamics in society. Importantly, McLeod (2024) submits that because, unlike discourse analysis or conversational analysis, CDA interrogates “both the big picture and the details, CDA helps us understand how language is used to maintain power and how this affects people's lives” in the contexts where the language is used to achieve specific results. Thus, in the CDA frame of reference, language does not only shape social structures, but it is also shaped by social structure.

CDA is used as both a theory and a method of analysis (Zhou et al., 2017). In essence, CDA is used to examine how social actors, political and otherwise, sell their ideologies, persuade, manipulate, or appeal to audiences using discursive tools or, simply, language. Furthermore, CDA is an important way (and frame) for understanding discourses of legitimation of self and delegitimation of others in the political space, which are critical ways in which politicians influence public opinion, public processes and policies, and public agenda.

Therefore, CDA was an appropriate frame for understanding public (including political) discourses around land in Southern Africa as we grapple with how political actors, as evidenced by their public utterances, significantly including but not limited to election manifestos, seek to keep the land question on the agenda, often not in ways that serve the public. This is because, as we argue in this paper, around election time, more than anything politicians seek to either maintain or overturn political power. As a result, discourses of legitimation of self and delegitimation of other are prevalent in their public discoursal performances.

5 Data analysis

Table 1 below presents the data extracted from the manifestos of the different political parties sampled for this study. It contains thematic strands emerging from each manifesto. The table also shows whether the political party was a ruling party, an opposition party, or the major opposition party at the time data were collected. Also shown are the party's stance on land reform and our interpretation of the language used in the manifesto to communicate stance. While the manifestos targeted were for 2024, for Zimbabwean political parties the latest available manifestos were for 2023 for one and for 2018–2023 for the other.

Table 1. Data excerpts from sampled manifestos.

5.1 Discursive strategies

Our analysis shows that African politicians from the sampled countries employ various discursive strategies to mobilize support through land reform rhetoric. Some of the key strategies that emerged from the analysis are nationalism, populism, and historical revisionism. These are driven by ideology, hegemony and power thus influencing the masses and consequently, the electoral results. These are discussed below.

5.1.1 Nationalism

Politicians frame land reform as a matter of national sovereignty, emphasizing the need to reclaim ancestral lands. From the table above, ZANU-PF speaks of “restoration to indigenous peoples of Zimbabwe” while PDM promises just compensation for expropriated land in Namibia. Furthermore, promises and assurances to “acquire land” (BDP, Botswana), “protect land rights and tenure security” (PDM, Namibia), “protect private property rights” (CCC, Zimbabwe), “expedite the land allocation process…” (SWAPO, Namibia) pervade the excerpts in Table 1. In South Africa, the MK states that:

“We declare that we will defeat this neo-apartheid by … expropriating all land without compensation and transferring ownership to the people under state and traditional leadership custodianship... Nationalizing the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), major banks, and insurance companies to reduce the dominance of private finance over our economy… Nationalizing strategic mines, ArcelorMittal and Sasol and revitalizing our state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to fulfil their developmental roles, and spur economic growth”… (MK Manifesto 2024).

Just like the terms neo-segregation and neo-racist used in the context of Namibia's post-apartheid society (Kohima et al., 2023), neo-apartheid in the above excerpt connotes continued segregation, inequality, oppression, and unrealized goals where the land issue in South Africa is concerned.

In South Africa, opposition parties like MK and EFF believe the solution lies in land redistribution without compensation and nationalization of “mines, banks and other strategic sectors of the economy, without compensation”. They believe that nationalization is the solution, as compensation will not achieve the desired balancing of scales. The DA, however, believes that while there is need to “improve the land reform process and enable more South Africans to own their own land” an urgent issue is to “tackle corruption and inefficiency…” in governance.

5.1.2 Populism

Leaders appeal directly to the people, presenting themselves as champions of the marginalized masses. For example, the EFF, just like the MK in the above section, claims that “… apartheid did not end in 1994.” They both believe that democracy in 1994 did not translate into substantive economic change. This strategy frames the persistence of poverty and inequality not merely as policy failures, but as a continuation of historical oppression. By doing so, these parties position themselves as the only true defenders of the marginalized, contrasting their radical stance against the alleged neoliberal compromises of established parties. According to the EFF, poverty and inequality in South Africa are at crisis level and, therefore, “the crisis levels of poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment being experienced in the country can be ended by the reclamation and equitable redistribution of the land and the creation of millions of jobs.” To do this, the EFF proposes that there should be land expropriation without compensation.

Similarly, SWAPO appeals to the Namibian youth by promising to “improve access and control of productive resources and services such as land, finance, markets, and employment for sustainable economic empowerment for women …attention to youth and women.” Equally, PDM assures that it will “promote women's access to land, resources, and agricultural training opportunities” in Namibia. From indigenous peoples, to youth, women, and to black people, political organisations' manifestos seek to appeal to different groupings in society as they seek support in elections.

5.1.3 Historical revisionism

Politicians reinterpret historical events to justify land reform policies. In South African political discourse, the reinterpretation of historical events functions as a strategic mechanism to legitimize radical land reform policies. Both the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) link contemporary socio-economic challenges such as poverty, unemployment, and inequality to the structural legacy of apartheid. The MK declares, “The foundational issues of poverty, unemployment, and inequality stem from the theft of land and mineral resources.” This rehashing of the past, a clear reference to apartheid in South Africa, functions to remind people of the past injustices. The link between poverty and high unemployment rates among black people and inequality in the South African society post-1994 with the legacy of apartheid also has support in extant literature (Francis and Webster, 2019; Seekings, 2007; World Bank Group, 2018).

For the EFF, however, the issues of poverty and unemployment do not stem from the past; they are caused by a very present and very pressing issue because, “…The demand for land and jobs now is the demand to end apartheid because it is now evident that apartheid did not end in 1994.” Somehow the EFF also links the socio-economic challenges faced by the majority to the legacy of apartheid. The call here seems to be a renewed revisit of the structures of apartheid that saw the majority cut off from the economy.

6 Discussion

The intersection of land reform and electioneering has significant consequences. One is polarization. Land reform rhetoric can exacerbate social divisions, pitting different groups against each other. Examples include the EFF's call for land expropriation without compensation and the CCC's call for compensation of land holders whose land was expropriated without compensation by the ZANU PF led government. These discourses, and associated promises, create unrealistic expectations, leading to disillusionment and unrest. See eNCA 31 January 2026 for example. Furthermore, land reform policies and practices can undermine economic stability, threatening food security, as in the case of Zimbabwe, and deterring investment as in the case of South Africa recently (Schwikowski and Nebe, 2025).

Southern Africa has a challenging history that has left individuals displaced, dispossessed, and wounded. The present is characterized by chaotic approaches to land redistribution, filled with conflict and dissensions. The situation is made worse by the predatory nature of political discourse, especially where elections are involved (Mpofu et al., 2021). The rhetoric surrounding land reform in southern Africa is thus complex and varied in its depth and implications. Land discourses exist in a continuum, including historicizing and memorializing, conservative redress practices, and radical rhetoric.

The discourse on land reform is nationalistic and revolutionary. It becomes sensational as it appeals to the existing, long-standing and insufficiently attended to, and mostly ignored need for social justice and a legitimate need to right the wrongs of colonialism in southern Africa and, specifically apartheid in South Africa and Namibia. In South Africa, the year 2014 saw the emergence of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a vibrant and radical opposition political party that contended in the 2014 national elections in South Africa. The EFF has since 2014 used land as “metaphor and symbol of economic disenfranchisement”, thus foregrounding the land question. As an opposition political party, the EFF came at a time when movements seeking emancipation and decolonization gained traction in South Africa, for example the Rhodes Must Fall and Fees Must Fall movements pioneered by university students. The predominantly land reform-based approach of EFF merged well with the urgent need to decolonise knowledge, transform institutions, and reframe the economy. Mostly because this framing of the land question by the EFF was working for their electoral outcomes, the MK, a new opposition political party founded in 2023, also took the same stance.

However, the discourse is exclusionary, isolationist, and a threat to landowners, the majority of whom are white people. The sensationalism is detrimental in the way it raises expectations to untenable levels, thus stirring unrest. Use of language that is inflammatory only brings immediate negative impacts on sustainable economic development, given that people lay their hopes of a sustained livelihood on political parties, an expectation that is impossible to achieve as learned from countries that have used this approach in their land reform and redistribution approaches. Zimbabwe is a case in point. Vast literature (Alexander and McGregor, 2001; Chavunduka, 2018; Muchadenyika, 2015; Sihlobo and Kirsten, 2018) links Zimbabwe's economic woes to how the ZANU-PF led government handled the land reform processes in early 2000s.

The EFF manifestos from 2014 up to 2024 consistently highlight land ownership in South Africa as central to full freedom from colonialism and apartheid. The manifestos recognize and frame all land ownership by white people as illegitimate as illustrated in Table 1 under the Stance on Land section, raising the expectations of the electorate toward a reversal of the status quo, which is a problematic solution to a difficult problem. Thus, opposition political parties such as EFF and MK, like revolutionary and governing political parties such as ANC, SWAPO, BDP (up to October 2024), and ZANU PF, have sensationally driven the political discourse of the inextricable link between land, identity, and belonging, often with undesirable outcomes. Hall and Kepe (2017) allude to land as symbol, identity, and citizenship, just as does the slogans of opposition political parties such as the EFF and MK.

Gregory (2004) and Fraser (2007) refer to a “colonial present,” with reference to the Middle East and South Africa. They posit that certain colonial-style relations are perpetuated through violence, displacement, dispossession, and control of the poor by the rich and dominant powers (Harris, 2004). According to Fraser (2007), the state's land reform strategies continue to keep control of the land and means of production in the hands of white people, corporate and even multinational capital, as well as black elites, while the majority rural black population holds insecure land rights. Therefore, political parties cash in on this gap to garner voters. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013) and Mbembe (2008) are among scholars who see South Africa, for example, as not actually liberated, since inequalities still exist in terms of class, and there has not been redistributive justice because many black people live in poverty owing to absent implementation of land rights and land reform.

Land redistribution done by national governments is always a reward system. However, willing seller and willing buyer also serves the rich. There is therefore need for a precarious balance between the two. We thus close our discussion with a suggestion hinged on sustainability. We seek a sustainability of policy to make possible the operationalization of equitable land redistribution.

7 Conclusion

The discourses surrounding land reform and electioneering in Africa reveal the complex interplay among politics, history, and economic interests. While land reform is a critical issue, its instrumentalization by politicians can have far-reaching consequences. To address the historical injustices underlying land reform, African governments must prioritize inclusive, participatory, and evidence-based policies over electoral rhetoric.

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Footnotes

Edited by: Jörn Ahrens, Justus Liebig University, Germany

Reviewed by: Yuhao Tan, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Josephat Kemei, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya