by AKANI CHAUKE
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – SOUTH Africa’s protracted land reform question has once again taken centre stage, with the South African Communist Party (SACP) demanding that the government urgently revisit and accelerate the redistribution of land to the country’s indigenous majority.
Speaking at the official launch of the Red October Campaign 2025–2026 over weekend, SACP Deputy National Chairperson Thulas Nxesi said land reform remained the cornerstone of South Africa’s unfinished liberation struggle.
He lamented that, more than three decades after democracy, the country’s land ownership patterns remain largely unchanged, with a small white minority still controlling most of the arable land.
“The land question lies at the heart of South Africa’s inequality. It cannot be postponed any longer,” Nxesi said.
“We are calling for a referendum to finally resolve the unresolved land issue and ensure land justice for our people.”
Land reform has long been a politically sensitive and economically charged issue in South Africa.
Under apartheid, Black South Africans were systematically dispossessed of their land through racially discriminatory laws such as the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts.
Despite post-1994 promises of restitution and redistribution, less than 10 percent of agricultural land has been transferred to Black ownership, far short of the government’s original target.
The SACP’s renewed call for action comes amid what it describes as resistance from a privileged minority that continues to benefit from land inequality.
Nxesi said that while most South Africans supported equitable redistribution, “a few intransigent elites remain unwilling to share the nation’s most vital resource, preferring to protect privilege at the expense of justice and peace.”
The Red October Campaign, an annual initiative by the SACP, this year focuses on deepening the struggle to realise the unfulfilled goals of the Freedom Charter, which in 1955 declared that “the land shall be shared among those who work it.”
The 2025–2026 campaign also coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Charter and the 31st anniversary of South Africa’s democracy.
Among its key priorities, the SACP outlined a comprehensive social and economic programme that includes:
- Accelerating land ownership transformation through restitution, redistribution, tenure security and state support, including access to technology, agricultural inputs, and capacity building.
- Rolling back neo-liberal economic dominance, including resisting privatisation and revitalising state-owned enterprises in key sectors such as energy, transport, and water.
- Implementing the National Health Insurance (NHI) to guarantee universal healthcare access.
- Tackling unemployment and poverty through broad-based industrialisation, sustainable job creation, and worker empowerment.
- Promoting gender equality and intensifying the fight against gender-based violence.
- Building grassroots power through co-operatives, rural development, and township economic renewal.
Nxesi emphasised that these goals cannot be achieved without addressing the structural question of land.
“Land is not just an economic asset; it is a source of dignity, heritage, and identity,” he said.
“For as long as the majority remain landless, the promise of freedom remains incomplete.”
– CAJ News