EFF Student Command wins eight out of 13 SRC seats at Wits

Wits University's student protest this year paved the way for the EFF Students Command (EFFSC) victory, with the organisation clinching eight of the 13 students representative council (SRC) seats.

EFFSC national president Sihle Lonzi said on Thursday the protest showed students were starting to believe that the ANC-aligned student movement Sasco was unable to solve students' issues.

“They [Sasco] are unable to be robust in their criticism of ANC ministers — and you know you can’t blame them as they are ANC members. It is difficult for the SRC president to say [higher education minister] Blade [Nzimande] must fall — and then go into an ANC meeting and say Blade must rise,” he said.

Lonzi added that students realised the outgoing SRC could not address accommodation, the National Students Financial Aid Scheme and other issues.

He said the victory at Wits signifies that young people in South Africa, particularly students, are resonating with the message of economic freedom “in our lifetime”.

The Wits SRC elects its president through a constituting meeting. The president is not directly elected through a ballot but through a vote by those who were elected.

Wits elections chief electoral officer Jabu Mashinini said the elected SRC elects its own executive and portfolios through an election process.

“The 13 members that are elected will have elections among themselves to allocate portfolios and executive members. They will decide, have an election and through the ballot do portfolio allocation,” she said.

Bukisa Boniswa, one of the representatives of the EFFSC who was elected, said

the victory shows that young people have a unified voice in terms of what they want to see happening in the country when it comes to economic transformation and education.

“I think essentially this is a signal to us as the EFFSC and we will use that to guide ourselves in office — the fact that we want to make sure that education is accessible to the young people of South Africa,” she said.

Boniswa, an honours student in urban and regional planning, said injustices in the education sector influenced her decision to join student politics and she wants to improve the lives of black youth. 

“That’s the real reason I got into student politics — because I can see that people in power are not using their power for the betterment of the youth — that is essentially how I got into student politics,” she said.

She added that problems in higher learning institutions were not directly at the institutions, but at the department of higher education & training. 

“I think as the EFF on a national scale, that is where we are going to direct our fight because it doesn’t help to fight these institutions. The problem is with the department because they are simply not taking into cognisance the fact that the majority of South Africans cannot afford education,” she said.

She added that the government benefits from young, educated people who would be willing to bring about innovative ideas on how to solve societal problems.

“It is [the government] who is supposed to fund this education, that is where the fight should be taken. The institutions don’t necessarily make policies in terms of funding,” she said.

Lonzi added that since the beginning of the SRC elections this year, the EFFSC has contested in nine universities and won in all of them.

These institutions are the University of the Free State, Unisa, University of Limpopo, University of Western Cape, North West University (Mahikeng campus), Tshwane University of Technology, Durban University of Technology, University of Pretoria and Wits.

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