We wanted ‘a Republican’ to win, says AfriForum

Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum says it would have preferred a Republican candidate to become president of the United States, because Republican principles resonate more with their members who are “classical conservatives”.

“There are certain issues that are important to the Republican party that resonate with AfriForum’s members, particularly economic issues. AfriForum, in a certain way, could be described as classically conservative. Our views are similar to views expressed by Alexis de Tocqueville when he wrote democracy in America, which is probably something that resonates more with the Republican than the Democratic party,” AfriForum’s leader Ernst Roets said.

The group had previously lobbied Donald Trump’s administration to support their call against expropriation of land without compensation and farm murders.

This drew the attention of Trump back in 2018, who posted on social media that he would request the secretary of state to study the proposed expropriation of land policy, stating that South Africa was “now seizing land from white farmers”.

Since then, the secretary of state had compiled a report on the issue, which was submitted to the White House, Roets told The Citizen. He said, however, it was unlikely to be published.

“All that AfriForum wanted was for the US government to apply pressure on South Africa by using the African Growth and Opportunity Act [AGOA] trade agreement as leverage. The agreement respected property rights and promoted free market, which South Africa was breaking through expropriation without compensation,” said Roets.

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But now that Trump was on his way out of the White House, it was unlikely that president-elect Joe Biden would act, he said.

“Someone like Trump would more easily say ‘they are breaking the agreement so let’s kick them out’. I think Biden would be more hesitant to do that. But we don’t want to be kicked out of the agreement. We would like to see this agreement used as leverage,” said Roets.

He said, however, that the group related to the Democrats on the protection of minority rights.

But should Biden officially take over the reins next year, this would have little impact on AfriForum’s, as they had already built relationships with various think tanks, organisations and members of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

“We have had meetings with people at the State Department under the Trump administration. Many of those people will remain there because a lot of them are there regardless of who the president is. I don’t think it is going to have a big impact on our network in Washington, regardless of who the President is.”

• This article has been updated, to change the headline from saying “We wanted Donald Trump to win, says AfriForum”. Afriforum has indicated that they would have prefered any Republican to win  the US elections, and not Trump in particular. Donald Trump was the sole candidate for the Republican party.

rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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