Wongalethu Maquthu

While the EFF Student Command (EFFSC) has won its third consecutive Student Representative Council (SRC) in Durban, South African Students Congress (SASCO) prevails in the Midlands.

Just like the EFFSC got all eight seats in Durban, SASCO got all seven seats in the Midlands.

The latest of the EFFSC’s three victories was the 2020/21 SRC election.  EFFSC chairperson in Durban, Buntu Faku, said although they expected to see a lot more people to vote for the party, the votes they obtained this year were higher than those of the previous election.

“Last election we got over 5 000 votes and this year it was over 7 000,” said Faku.

At the Durban election EFFSC has a lead of over 5 300 votes over SASCO as the candidate with the least votes for the party got 7 309 votes and the SASCO candidate with the most votes has 1 994 votes.

After postponing the elections by a week, DUT postponed the elections again on day one of voting due to the online voting system experiencing technical glitches. The election was postponed for the following day.  Since voting had already begun when the postponement was made, the votes already cast in were nullified.  Students who had already voted were allowed to vote again.  In the lead up to the election both parties had a problem with DUT’s online voting system.  Faku said as the EFFSC they knew they were going to win.

“We just wanted a free and fair election. After the elections were postponed [for the second time] the issue was fixed,” he added.

SASCO candidate in Durban, Songezo Spambo, congratulated the EFFSC for winning the election.  However, he said they think the results margin of difference should not have been that wide.  He said the numbers did not correspond with the total number of voters.

A total of 9 553 students voted in Durban and 3 496 in the Midlands.

“We consulted a doctor of mathematics and he said it appears there was a third hand.  We’ve written an email to the electoral committee asking them how they arrived at the results,” said Spambo.

Spambo went on to say that the fact that DUT had to postpone the elections twice shows that the institution was not ready for online elections.  He went on to thank students who voted for SASCO.

“As SASCO we’ll proceed with our plans regardless of the outcome,” he added.

Spambo said they are very happy that SASCO won in the Midlands.

“At least we are represented there, and we didn’t lose everything,” he said

First year student Samukelisiwe Zulu said the reason she is for EFFSC is because it fights for them as students.

“At the beginning of the year I couldn’t register and EFF helped me,” she said.

Wandiswa Bhengu, who is doing her first year in Human Resource, said EFFSC also assisted her when she was registering.

Xolelwa Vilakazi, also a first-year student, said the EFFSC showed her where the campus she would be attending at was when she could not find it.  She said the party also showed her the residence she would be residing at.

The votes are yet to be finalised.

A couple more students had their bit to say about the outcome of this election:

Picture: mg.co.za