Constitutional amendment won’t address poverty issues

“More than two years ago, Parliament passed a motion to establish the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) to look into amending the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation.

Public input was invited, and over 600 000 written submissions were received, with two-thirds being against any constitutional amendment. But the tone of engagements at the hearings was very different, with the vast majority of participants, mostly black South Africans, being strongly in favour of it.

The debate came down to a proxy debate about the legitimacy of our economic system and the existing property rights dispensation.

POLITICAL THEATRE

I first used the term ‘political theatre’ in 2013 to illustrate