EFF leader pledges to storm Orania in push against segregation
Northern Cape EFF leader Shadrack Tlhaole has pledged to storm and dismantle Orania after the party’s protest at the Premier’s Office.
Economic Freedom Fighters’ Northern Cape chairperson, Shadrack Tlhaole, announced plans to settle in Orania as part of a broader effort to challenge the town’s controversial exclusivity.
Framing the move as a political statement, Tlhaole said the EFF intends to disrupt the status quo in the Afrikaner enclave.
Earlier this week, EFF members marched to the Northern Cape Premier Zamani Saul’s office in Kimberley. There, they submitted a memorandum demanding a legal review into Orania’s continued existence on privately owned land.
Orania’s leadership, however, pushed back firmly, vowing to resist the EFF’s efforts to disrupt their self-governing community.
EFF LEADER: ‘ORANIA IS A MODERN-DAY APARTHEID’
Addressing EFF members who had marched to hand over a memorandum Saul’s office, the party’s Tlhaole called out Orania as a “Apartheid-era racial-enclaved operating community within a democratic South Africa”.
“Orania is not merely a town…upheld under the false narrative of cultural autonomy. It undermines the value of non-racialism, equality, and unity that is in our constitution.
“Orania is a town that excludes black South Africans by race, language, and culture under the pretense of Afrikaner cultural preservation. It denies the right of back people to live, work, or own properties in the area. This is not culture; it is a modern-day Apartheid to disguise institutional racism,” Tlhaole said.
Tlhaole then claimed that the EFF would infiltrate Orania.
“I am going to be a resident of Orania, I am going with my collective, the leadership of the EFF. I am going to fight tooth and nail to be one society; we are going to be inclusive.
“The EFF is focusing on unifying all the people. Orania on itself, if not attended to very soon, there will be tension between black and white in South Africa, so we are fighting that we are going to win,” he continued.
WHO FOUNDED THE TOWN?
Carel Boshoff III established Orania in 1991, and today, his son, Carel Boshoff IV, leads the whites-only town. As the grandson of Hendrik Verwoerd—the architect of apartheid—Boshoff IV continues to promote the community’s separatist ideals.
Situated in the Northern Cape, Orania houses around 3,000 residents. The town operates independently, running its own businesses, schools, healthcare facilities, and even its own currency on privately owned land.
Over time, several high-profile figures, among them Gayton McKenzie, Penuel Mlotshwa, and Siv Ngesi, have made visits to the controversial settlement.