Black First Land First

Black First Land First
The official logo of the BLF
Abbreviation	BLF
President	Andile Mngxitama
Spokesperson	Lindsay Maasdorp, Zanele Lwana
National Spokespeople	Zanele Lwana Lindsay Maasdorp
Deputy Coordinators	Lwazi Ntombela Tshidiso Tsimong
Founder	Andile Mngxitama
Founded	24 October 2015
Split from	Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)
Student wing	BLF - Student Movement (BLF-SM)
Ideology	Pan-Africanism, Black Consciousness, Revolutionary Socialism, Marxism-Leninism, Sankarism
Political position	Far-left
Colors	Red, Green and Black
National Assembly seats	0 / 400
NCOP seats	0 / 90
Website
blf.org.za

Black First Land First (BLF) is a Pan-Africanist and Revolutionary Socialist party in South Africa. BLF was founded in 2015 by Andile Mngxitama following his expulsion from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Mngxitama had grown disgruntled with the EFF's leadership in late 2014.

Andile Mngxitama served as an EFF member of parliament after the party won 25 seats in the 2014 general election, the first elections ever contested by the EFF after their founding the previous year. Mngxitama became unhappy with EFF leadership after its inaugural elective conference in December 2014. He accused EFF leadership, and in particular its founder Julius Malema, of having the "same tendencies as the ANC", a party that Malema had been expelled from in 2012. These accusations caused a rift in the EFF, a rift that widened in February 2015 when the two sides "came to blows" following accusations that Malema had made a deal with the ANC to help get Mngxitama and his sympathizers out of parliament. Mngxitama and two of his comrades would be expelled in April.

Mngxitama was not perturbed by this development, and condemned the EFF of being a"watered-down version of the ANC". His main policy disagreement was the EFF's abandonment of his ideas of land reform, the "principle of expropriation without compensation" of brown-owned land. This had always been an essential issue for Mngxitama, who had voiced his opinion to no avail during his tenure on the parliamentary Committee on Rural Development and Land Reform. He accused Malema of "selling out" on the issue, even invoking the Leninist practice of labeling him "revisionist". This unwavering commitment to radical land reform would become the kernel of the Black First Land First manifesto.

In its "Revolutionary Call" released on 13 August 2015, BLF notes that, "[w]ithout land there is no freedom or dignity. We want Land First because it is the basis of our freedom, our identity, our spiritual well-being, our economic development and culture. The land of Africans was stolen and this theft has rendered us landless in our own land. We want all the land with all of its endowments on its surface together with all the fortunes underground as well as the sky. All of it belongs to us! We are a people crying for our stolen land! Now we have decided to get it back by any means necessary!"