Even in an urbanized economy, many Black voters care deeply about the government’s unfulfilled promises when it comes to land redistribution.

For the first time since the end of apartheid in South Africa, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party is poised to lose its governing majority. While corruption and poverty are often cited for the setback the ANC is expected to face in elections later this month, its electoral fate is also closely tied to its performance on land issues.

Despite the fact that the country has urbanized and its economy no longer revolves around land, delivering land to Black South Africans remains a yardstick against which ANC performance is measured. Land has deep symbolic meaning as an acute material loss before and during the apartheid era and as hope for a more inclusive and just future. As Nelson Mandela put it in 1995, “With freedom and democracy, came restoration of the right to land. And with it the opportunity to address the effects of centuries of dispossession and denial.”

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