FF Plus leader Pieter Groenewald on conservative values and empowering communities

He was the tall Afrikaner who was warmly cheered by fellow MPs when he applauded the armed security force personnel who ejected rowdy Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MPs who tried to invade the stage during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address earlier this year.

But who is Freedom Front Plus leader Dr Pieter Groenewald? He hails from a typical Afrikaner family – his father was a farmer, a miner and a civil servant, while his mother was a housewife and their children attended Afrikaans-medium schools and an Afrikaans university.

Family life and history

One of four children in the family, Groenewald is one of twins. He and his sister, Marietjie, made front page news in the local press when they became the first twins to be born at the then new Fochville Hospital, in the then Western Transvaal in 1955.

His father worked as a miner at Carletonville at the time. As both his parents had never been in politics, his political socialisation came from his mother’s side as she excelled in dinner-time family debates.

Groenewald, unlike his father, was never a farmer, and he cut his own path as career politician. But when his father got a job as a civil servant working in the canals for the department of water affairs at Boskop Dam outside Potchefstroom, he rented a 1 300ha farm from the government with the option to buy.

Unfortunately, after 18 years’ occupation, they were evicted from the farm after the government made up its mind not to sell the land. Groenewald’s father was given only three months to vacate the land and he made a big loss as he had to sell his cattle at low prices.

Trauma

That incident traumatised the young Pieter, who still talks about it today as if it happened yesterday. He had accompanied his father to go and pay for the property at Land Affairs in Pretoria.

“So I know what it is to be evicted from your land, I will never forget that and it shows forced removals also affected some of us as whites,” Groenewald said.

He received all his education, from primary school to university, in Potchefstroom. He attended Laerskool Naauwpoort, and matriculated at Hoërskool Gimnasium in 1973, before being conscripted into the army in 1974.

He originally studied geology at the then Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education but dropped that and chose to do a law degree instead, “because that’s where my heart was”.

Small jobs

Due to financial constraints he took a break from studies to go do small jobs in order to save money to continue with his studies.

These included working as a wood chopper at the Picnic Braai factory. He also worked at Naschem for nine years, then a subsidiary of Armscor that manufactured medium and heavy calibre ammunition.

During the time he studied part-time at Potchefstroom University to complete his B. Iuris degree, after which he obtained his postgraduate qualifications.

He later did a Ph.D in political studies at the same university, which had by then changed its name to North-West University.

Interestingly, the title of his dissertation was “The South African National Electoral System: A Critical Analysis and Alternatives”.

His first involvement in politics happened in 1982 during the introduction of the tricameral parliamentary system, which he believed was an opportunity to “create a future for all South Africans where our children would be safe”.

READ MORE: Educating people about horrors of apartheid ‘incites violence’, says FF+

Political career

His political career moved fast after he contested the constituency of Stilfontein in 1987 but lost, only to be elected mayor of Stilfontein in 1988.

His election as an MP for Stilfontein constituency, standing for the Conservative Party (CP) in 1989, kicked off his long parliamentary politics journey.

“I was a member of the Conservative Party. I was never a member of the National Party. As the CP and now as the FF+ we believed in self-determination, which means that true power to the people lies in [the principle of communities.

“We say that communities must govern themselves,” Groenewald said. Groenewald describes himself as a “progressive conservative”.

As such, he was one of the Conservative Party members who believed the party should participate in the 1994 democratic elections.

The moderates within the party moved out to form the Freedom Front Plus after the CP refused to participate in the elections.

“The tensions were so fierce that the AWB threatened to kill my children because of my stance that the CP must participate in the election,” he said.

He approaches politics in a rational manner, he said, favouring fair play, open-mindedness and straight talk – a formula for his leadership and success.

“The fact is I am not a politically correct politician. I say things as it is and quite a lot of people like to say I am straightforward and they appreciate it,” Groenewald said.

He ascribes the success of the FF+ in the 2019 national elections to his principle of straight talk. The party grew its total number of councillors to 238 in the November 2021 local government elections – from 69 in 2016.

The party is represented in all the metro councils in the country. The successes of the FF+ in 2019 also came because the party got across to people what it stood for – integrity and respect for each other, even if you have differences.

“These are conservative values. But on the political spectrum, we are centre conservative with our values,” he said.

“We believe in self-determination because that is true power to the people. In our campaign we said that’s what we stand for and the people liked it and the results are there for all to see.”

He was quick to say the FF+ was not far-right, nor linked to any right-wing elements in South Africa. The party, however, does cooperate with those it shares values with, such as organisations AfriForum and Solidarity.

Both Solidarity and, particularly, Afriforum believe in self-determination and the empowering of communities.

He does not miss much about the former apartheid government, except that the decorum of parliament was respected – unlike in the current dispensation. There were no disruptions, unlike in the “poor example set by parliament at this moment”, Groenewald said. The attempted EFF stage invasion was a case in point. “Take me as an example of respect for decorum. I differ fiercely with the president [Cyril Ramaphosa] but I always do it in respectful way.

“So, when I stood up in parliament to address the president, I was being fair: I believed the protection services of the president did their job well.

It’s as simple as that and that’s where I differ with [Democratic Alliance leader John] Steenhuisen,” Groenewald said. Steenhuisen criticised Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula for allowing the situation to happen, when the president’s security guard and parliamentary security services prevented the EFF from climbing on the stage.

Groenewald said the moment the EFF ran onto the stage it was a threat to the president. “In that situation do you still have to wait when they advanced towards the president? If I see a burglar inside my house at night, must I ask if he is going to kill me or not?”

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– ericn@citizen.co.za