AfriForum and March and March form joint working group after Centurion meeting
AfriForum and the March and March movement met at AfriForum’s offices on 18 August 2026 and agreed to form a joint working group. The two organisations identified shared ground on crime, border control, education and community organising, while both sides confirmed they will still disagree on other matters. The meeting comes against a backdrop where the ANC-led government has refused to meet AfriForum since April 2024, when the organisation wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa asking him to send the Expropriation Act back to Parliament.
March and March founder Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma led her delegation to AfriForum’s offices in Centurion on 18 August 2026, where she met a delegation led by AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel. The two organisations came out of the meeting with an agreement to form a joint working group.
According to a statement released by AfriForum, the organisations identified several areas for cooperation. These include community organising, capacity building to improve people’s living conditions within the law, mother tongue education, accessible education, and peaceful coexistence. The two organisations also agreed to jointly investigate legal matters of mutual interest and to support each other on the rule of law and the fight against crime in communities, including illegal immigration.
The Movement, according to the statement, believes that poor border control has serious consequences for the economy, that the trade in illegal goods harms businesses and can cost jobs, and that corruption and incompetence among some, or possibly many, government officials requires urgent attention. The statement said cooperation between community based organisations not driven by narrow political interests is essential to end lawlessness.
Ngobese-Zuma said a healthy relationship between the two organisations recognises that while they share many common interests, there are also matters on which they will differ. She said the relationship rests on mutual respect, with both parties agreeing to complement and challenge each other in pursuit of a shared goal, building a united South Africa that recognises diversity.
Kriel said AfriForum already works with a range of organisations and communities as part of its commitment to building a better future for the country. He said differences over specific issues cannot be allowed to stand in the way of cooperation that will benefit children, and that while protest against government failures is sometimes necessary, it is more important to use the means already available to build the future communities want. He said AfriForum built itself from zero members and 3 staff into an organisation of roughly 300,000 members over 20 years, and that it is willing to share openly what worked and what did not.
Barend Uys, AfriForum’s head of intercultural relations and cooperation, said the organisation builds relationships with communities on the basis of mutual recognition and respect. He said AfriForum has already entered cooperation agreements with several traditional communities and organisations, including the AmaBhele KaJamangile, Seleka Barolong, Batlharo Boo Tokwana Ba Ga Masibi, Batlokoa Ba Mota, Batlharo Ba Ga Motlhware, the Vulamehlo Kusile Organisation and the Royal Leaders of South Africa.
Kriel closed the statement by saying poor government policy and outdated ideologies are the root cause of the challenges communities across the region face. He said the ANC-led government does nothing to encourage neighbouring countries to adopt policies that would improve conditions there and reduce illegal migration into South Africa, and that in certain respects the ANC follows similarly damaging policies. He said the ANC and the government it leads does not put citizens first, but rather its own interests and those of its long time political and ideological allies.
Both organisations confirmed that the interests of communities and citizens must always be pursued peacefully and within the framework of the law, and that violence and intimidation have no place in these efforts.
What Kriel told Newzroom Afrika
Speaking to Newzroom Afrika anchor Xoli Mngambi after the meeting, Kriel was asked whether the partnership is about helping March and March build the kind of institutional and legal capacity that would let it challenge government in court, the way AfriForum has done. Kriel said communities need institutions, and that the best thing would be for broader communities to have strong institutions, with AfriForum helping where it can.
Kriel said AfriForum has made a lot of mistakes while building itself over the past 20 years, and that it is willing to share both what worked and what did not with March and March.
Ngobese-Zuma has said March and March is not becoming a political party. She has described plans to build a legal advocacy body, the SA First Forum, to help South Africans who cannot afford to enforce their own rights.
Mngambi also raised criticism of the partnership from journalist Max du Preez, who has argued that AfriForum and Solidarity have revived an aggressive Afrikaner nationalism built on victimhood. Du Preez carries very little weight in the Afrikaner community and is not regarded as a voice that speaks for it. Mngambi asked whether South Africans should be concerned about one organisation that identifies as Afrikaner working with another that critics say organises along ethnic lines, given Kriel’s earlier meeting with former president Jacob Zuma and the MK Party.
Kriel said South Africans should not be worried. He said people should not listen to a bitter person who has no support among Afrikaners, and said that according to research only 2 percent of Afrikaners share those views. He said people should judge AfriForum on what it does, and pointed to its cooperation agreements with more than 10 traditional communities as evidence of its track record.
A meeting the government has refused
The March and March meeting stands in contrast to how the ANC-led government has treated AfriForum’s own attempts at engagement.
AfriForum submitted written comments to Parliament against the section 25 property rights amendment in January 2020, and made an oral presentation against the Expropriation Bill to a committee of the National Council of Provinces later that year. It submitted further written comments in March 2023 and made oral presentations at provincial public comment hearings around the country in June 2023.
On 15 April 2024, before the general election, AfriForum wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa asking him to refer the Expropriation Act back to Parliament on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. Ramaphosa signed the Act on 20 December 2024. The signing was only published in the Government Gazette a month later, on 24 January 2025.
In February 2025, when AfriForum requested a meeting with the president, presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said AfriForum had spread falsehoods about the country without ever seeking an audience with the president, that it was unclear why the organisation was requesting a meeting at that point, and that the president would not meet with them.
AfriForum’s letter had been with the Presidency since April 2024, 10 months before that refusal.
