Episode 03 - Dr Pieter Groenewald, VF+

Dr Pieter Groenewald is the leader of the Vryheidsfront Plus (VF+)/Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus). It is a conservative party, primarily concerned with protecting minority rights throughout the country. Dr Groenewald has been a member of parliament since 1989, and leader of the VF+ since 2014. Under his tenure the party moved away from being concerned with only Afrikaner rights to a broader focus on minority rights, generally.

Like most conservative parties the values that underpin the VF+ policy stances are old-school, honour, integrity, respect, etc. However, their primary policy goal is centred around community self-determination. This was something I was interested in, as I was unclear as to what exactly self-determination means, according to the VF+.

Dr Groenewald said that the best way to conceptualise self-determination is in terms of the devolution of powers of governance to the provincial and local levels. He stated that most of the tax money collected in a province should remain within that province and that some nationally run institutions, such as the police force, should be given to the provinces to manage.

In his explanation of the VF+’s stance on self-determination, Groenewald goes on to explain that within the constitution (section 235) there is a clause which contains the right to self-determination and that the clause has never been substantiated by national legislation. It is through the activation of this clause that the VF+ wishes to see self-determination occur in the country.

Moving away from self-determination to the huge challenges in South Africa, much of the VF+’s plan to fix the problems revolves around two main areas, the building of a capable state, in which the best people are employed to government positions and the ending of race-based hiring policies.

According to Dr Groenewald, most of the current, huge challenges South Africa faces (crime, poor service delivery, dreadful public education) have their roots in the wholesale implementation of race-based hiring policies and cadre deployment across every government institution. Dr Groenewald’s alternative is to audit government employees, fire those who are failing to uphold their mandate and employ people based entirely on merit, as opposed to political expediency.

Going further on the problem of BEE, he says that it is really only a front to allow for the mass looting of the state, by putting in place easily manipulated individuals into positions through which they can funnel government money away to their cronies. He says rather than being a transformational empowerment scheme, it is a scam. ‘BEE does not stand for black economic empowerment, it stands for black elite enrichment.’

The VF+ alternative to this is ‘black economic skills transfer’ in which previously disadvantaged individuals are taught the skills necessary to become socially mobile and economically valuable.

A very interesting exchange in our conversation was over Dr Groenewald’s views of apartheid. In a previous interview with SABC, Dr Groenewald and the interviewer spent a lot of time going back and forth over whether Dr Groenewald would be willing to condemn apartheid. In that interview he refused to do so and much of the time (I felt) was wasted over this single point.

I asked him why he was unwilling to condemn apartheid and he responded by asking why he should have to condemn a system that is long gone and that no one wishes to see returned? In following up on this I then cited a line from the preamble of the constitution, ‘We, the people of South Africa, recognize the injustices of our past’ and asked him if he was willing to recognize that apartheid was an injustice. He agreed that, indeed, apartheid, was certainly an injustice and we left it at that.

Finally, I was running low on time when asking about the possible coalition partners that the VF+ would be willing to work with in 2024. In short, the VF+ is unwilling to work with either the ANC or EFF on national level, but they feel as though parties such as the DA, ACDP, IFP and ActionSA all overlap with the VF+ values enough to be worth joining a coalition with after 2024. I can only hope that the values of this potential, future coalition are a strong enough foundation for a policy platform that can get us out of the mess we are in.