DA students regain SRC control at Fort Hare

Track record makes up for year’s absence

THE Democratic Alliance Student Organisation regained control of the University of Fort Hare’s Alice campus when it won five seats in Thursday’s elections.

This means Daso, which did not contest last year’s student representative council elections, because it failed to submit contestation documents on time, is now back at the helm.

Daso has been allocated five seats in the 10-seat SRC in Alice.

The South African Student Congress (Sasco) won three seats while the EFF Student Command (EFFSC) and the Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania (Pasma) managed one seat each.

At the East London campus, new kids on the block Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa Student Movement (Denosa SM) has been allocated four seats, Pasma and Sasco each have two seats respectively, while the EFFSC and Daso each got one seat each.

At an institutional level, Daso has been allocated two seats, Sasco two while independent candidate Sonwabile Mamkeli received enough votes to get the remaining seat.

This is the second time that Daso will govern at the main campus of the historic university after they outclassed Sasco in the 2015 and 2016 polls.

Sasco was also dealt a blow at the East London campus as they failed to garner enough votes to control the campus.

At the East London campus, Denosa SM unseated Pasma. Daso’s Xolani Jaji told the Saturday Dispatch that they were happy that have once again won the SRC elections on the campus.

“We are very excited that students once more put their faith in us. After the results were announced students sang around the campus,” he said.

He said they did not take it for granted that the students chose Daso to lead the campus.

“We appreciate their support. We do not take it for granted,” he said.

Jaji said not contesting last year’s elections had been painful.

But he said because of their track record, students voted them back in power.

“We did a lot of progress when we were in power. We championed a lot of things during our time and only in the year we did not contest a lot of damage was done , but we are back.

“Students should rest assured that we have their best interests at heart,” he said.

One of their priorities would be students’ safety.

Denosa SMUFH East London branch Yonela Gxothiwe said they were overwhelmed with the support the students showed them.

“We are happy as the leadership that our efforts and sleepless nights paid off. It was not easy, but we managed to convince them to vote for us, and they did,” he said.

Gxothiwe said their goal would be to bring services to students.

“Some of our priorities will include the issue of shortage of residence and delayed payments in allowances. It is unacceptable that students struggle to get accommodation.

“The other burning issue we want to address urgently is payment of allowances. Students go hungry for months because the university delays loading their allowances. We will put a stop to that,” he said.