Warring SRC parties still at loggerheads

Counting votes in elections halted yet again as student bodies continue to squabble

THE counting of votes has again been halted at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) District Six campus following the Student Representative Council (SRC) elections at the weekend.

This follows the parties contesting the election being embroiled in a dispute, despite an agreement that the SA Students Congress(Sasco), the EFF Student Command (EFFSC) and Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania (Pasma) reached on Monday after disruptions which led to a scuffle and some students allegedly being pepper-sprayed at the weekend.

Sasco chairperson at the campus, Lutho Runeli, claimed the process was about to resume at the venue when the EFFSC declined to participate.

Runeli said the EFFSC, which had claimed victory at the Bellville campus, had demanded that the votes of about 22 students who are believed to be from Mowbray be counted.

“We were amazed because an agreement was reached to exclude the votes of 22 students who voted twice.

“So there was another disagreement and when we called the director of the company running SRC elections to call the chief electoral officer to intervene we were told he had resigned with effect from October 9 (yesterday). He resigned without us finalising the counting of local SRC votes at Cape Town campus.”

The EFFSC chairperson at the campus, Sipho Mokoena, said they were consulting with their lawyers on their next step.

“We have also emailed the institution’s vice-chancellor for intervention and a solution. We heard that the counting of votes might proceed tomorrow (today).

“There was also a meeting held late today (yesterday) and we rejected it because we know that, as soon as we go to the venue, students from Pasma and Sasco change their minds.

“We never agreed on excluding the votes of the 22 students. The agreement was to include them. However, when we got to the venue they changed their minds and demanded they be excluded. There cannot be a revote because it’s unconstitutional at CPUT,” Mokoena said.

He said they wanted CPUT management to investigate if there were students who had voted twice.

“If they knew about the students, why raise the concern when they see we are winning and not before, because we are aware that they knew about this before it was known that the EFF was leading in votes?”

CPUT had not responded by the time of going to press.

If they knew about the students, why raise concern when we are winning and not before? Sipho Mokoena EFFSC chairperson