OLIVER METH | UNIVEN’s convocation campaign has become a political theatre

As a communications specialist, I spend much of my time analysing public narratives, political messaging and how trust is built or destroyed, in the public sphere.

Over the past weeks, I’ve watched the University of Venda’s convocation election campaign unfold across Facebook, WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms. What should have been a celebration of alumni leadership has instead become a masterclass in reputational damage.

The messaging has become increasingly toxic. Accusations and counter-accusations have dominated timelines.

Candidates and their supporters have traded public allegations of voter exclusion, political interference, procedural unfairness, backroom lobbying, inducements and campaign misconduct.

Every day seems to produce another statement, another leaked message, another court interdict, another video and another rebuttal.

Whether every allegation is true is ultimately for the appropriate authorities - not Facebook commentators or WhatsApp groups - to determine. But from a communications perspective, the damage has already been done.

Once an election is consumed by mud-slinging, suspicion and competing claims of unfairness - public confidence begins to collapse long before a single vote is cast.

In communications, we often say that reputation takes years to build but only moments to lose. That is precisely the danger facing the University of Venda today.

This year’s convocation election has drawn significant attention, with prominent candidates, including adv Lerato Moela, contesting for leadership alongside the university’s existing convocation leadership.

What should have been a contest of ideas, vision and alumni engagement has instead become a contest of narratives, legal challenges and competing versions of events.

Perhaps the clearest sign that confidence in the process has been shaken is that the campaign spilled beyond social media and into the courts. The urgent legal intervention around the voting process, particularly concerning access to online voting and participation by graduates - highlighted just how contested the election has become.

Regardless of one’s preferred candidate, the fact that a university convocation election required judicial intervention should concern every graduate who values institutional integrity and democratic governance.

Universities are supposed to teach democracy, not struggle to practise it. What has emerged online resembles less a convocation election and more the kind of factional politics South Africans have become all too familiar with.

The language is strikingly familiar, with claims of corruption, patronage and accusations of unfair campaigning that all suggest that graduates are being courted through favours and inducements.

These are references to what South Africans have cynically come to call “KFC politics” - where a meal, a favour or a token gesture is perceived as more persuasive than integrity, ideas or leadership. And whether these allegations ultimately withstand scrutiny is for independent processes to determine.

But the mere fact that they have become central to the public conversation should deeply concern everyone associated with the university.

Universities should never become laboratories for the worst habits of our national politics. They should be places where ethical leadership is cultivated, where transparency is expected and where democratic participation is protected.

Instead, many graduates have found themselves debating voter rolls instead of manifestos, court papers instead of policy proposals and allegations instead of ideas.

That is a tragedy for an institution whose reputation has been built over decades. If graduates genuinely believe they were denied their right to participate, those concerns deserve a fair and independent hearing.

If allegations of inducements, procedural irregularities or unfair campaigning are unfounded, they should be transparently investigated and decisively put to rest.

If administrative failures occurred, they should be acknowledged and corrected.

The university’s silence has created a vacuum that speculation has eagerly filled. In the absence of timely, transparent communication, allegations and rumours have come to shape the public narrative, eroding trust in the electoral process.

When institutions choose silence during moments of controversy, they risk allowing perception to become accepted as reality.

This is precisely why the minister of higher education and training, Buti Manamela, should not wait until this dispute escalates into a full-blown governance crisis.

An independent review of the convocation election process would not undermine the university’s autonomy - it would strengthen public confidence in one of SA’s public institutions and reaffirm that democracy on our campuses matters just as much as democracy at the ballot box.

Public universities are public institutions. Their governance must not only be fair - it must be seen to be fair.

Ministerial oversight is not about choosing winners or losers. It is about protecting the credibility of the process.

South Africa has watched too many public institutions lose public confidence because early warning signs were ignored. Universities should not become the next casualty of declining governance standards.

The University of Venda has earned a proud place in SA’s higher education landscape. It deserves a convocation election whose outcome commands respect, not because one side prevailed but because every graduate believes the process was beyond reproach.

The winners deserve a mandate free from doubt and the unsuccessful candidates deserve confidence that they competed on a level playing field.

Most importantly, every graduate deserves to know that democracy at their alma mater is stronger than factional politics, stronger than social media warfare and stronger than the corrosive culture of patronage that has weakened so many of our public institutions.

Because when the loudest message emerging from a university election is distrust rather than hope, democracy has already begun to lose and that should concern us all.

• Oliver Meth is a development and political communications strategist

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