Fort Hare SRC elections throws up a few curveballs

History has been made with the Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania (PASMA) winning student elections at the University of Fort Hare’s East London campus.

Pasma suddenly shot up to clinch the win thanks to infighting between two ANC aligned student movements‚ the South African Student Congress (Sasco) and the ANC youth league.

The ANCYL at the campus vowed to defy ANC orders that they support Sasco‚ and instead opted to inform its supporters to vote for Pasma instead.

IEC provisional results confirmed on Thursday that Pasma‚ which has never run the institution‚ won the majority of the seats at the campus.

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Sasco has‚ however‚ regained the Alice campus‚ which has been run by the Democratic Alliance Student Organisation since 2015. It also retained the Bhisho campus.

Although Sasco now also governs the university’s Student Representative Council‚ the victory was not an easy one.

ANCYL chairman Banzi Nkitha denied that the league had instructed supporters to vote for Pasma but said had they been treated “differently” by the secretary general of the ANCYL the outcome could have been different .

“If things were sorted out differently‚ all of this could have been avoided. It is painful to us to see a campus ruled by an opposition‚” said Nkitha.

Members of the youth league in the East London campus were seen outside campus openly declaring that they had voted for Pasma.

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Pasma chairman Zukisani Nyewe told the Daily Dispatch that the breakdown of relations between Sasco and the ANCYL worked to their advantage.

He said‚ however‚ the amount of work they have put in gaining support over the years should not be overlooked.

“We have worked very hard to be where we are today. We are delighted about the outcome of the elections‚” said Nyewe.

Sasco chairman Phumlani Msenge conceded defeat in the East London campus but said the hard work of the organisation has won them the "Institutional SRC".

“Sasco is now leading the University of Fort Hare‚” said Msenge.

In the provisional results provided by the university in the institutional SRC‚ Sasco led the polls with 51% and was followed by Pasma with 18%.

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Daso was barred from taking part in the elections after they missed the March 24 deadline of submitting their list of candidates. However‚ the organisation could contest the election on the East London campus‚ where it got 537 votes out of a total of 2‚060 votes.

Daso Fort Hare constituency leader Hlomela Bucwa said they accepted the East London campus results but are still going to seek recourse in the courts on the Alice campus matter.

- TMG Digital/DispatchLIVE