The EFF’s Student Command has called on the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) to hold student leadership elections after a three-year hiatus.
The student body has condemned the institution for not declaring an election date this year, despite the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions.
CPUT last held its Student Representative Council (SRC) elections in 2019 and has not been able to host another one since the pandemic hit in early 2020 due to a rule in its constitution that does not allow for online voting – a clause that has the EFF seeing red.
Since 2020, the University of the Western Cape, Stellenbosch University and UCT have been able to hold their SRC elections either on online platforms or a hybrid format. All three have also held fresh elections this year.
Asked whether CPUT will host the elections before the end of the year, the institution’s spokesperson Lauren Kansley said: “Hopefully, we will have elections this year.”
She said protest actions and the pandemic were the reasons for elections being suspended in previous years, but the university was committed to seeing SRC elections resume.
“CPUT espouses values of good governance and remains committed to the advancement and support of democratic principles, including the fostering of a democratic electoral system, and would encourage as many eligible students as possible to participate in the SRC elections.
“The institution is currently working hard to overcome the challenges faced previously,” she said.
Kansley said the university residences are full of students and academic learning continues virtually and in-person and that staff are still working remotely in some administration units.
The EFFSC Western Cape chairperson, and a student at the institution, Sikelela Msizazwe, said they understood a pause on elections at the height of the pandemic but stressed there was no reason not to elect a new structure this year.
He said since the regulations were lifted, the SRC and the university needed to declare a date within this year.
“We are calling for SRC elections to sit (so) that the students can exercise their democratic right and elect their representatives, who will represent their needs and be their voice in the corridors of management.
“As the SRC constitution is legally binding, failure of the university to announce a date for SRC elections will leave us with no choice but to take it to court and enforce compliance with the constitution,” he said.
He said just as the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) was able to run physical municipal elections last year, CPUT should have followed suit.
Currently, the ANC’s SA Students Congress (Sasco) has three seats, EFFSC three seats and the Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania (Pasma) has the remaining two seats.
The SRC president and Sasco member Nanga Codana said he was not scared of elections, but they were waiting for the university to approve a proposal which sought to amend the constitution to allow a hybrid form of voting should another pandemic arise.
“We have a (proposal for an) SRC constitution amendment which has not yet been approved by the management. It is only a matter of approval and then we go to the elections. The amendment caters for the hybrid model where students can vote online and manually.
“We are not scared of elections, we can even go to them tomorrow. We are not scared, but we are not going to be pressured by anyone,” he said.
Political analyst Tessa Dooms said democracy was not limited to people’s ability to vote because in certain circumstances voting may be impossible, but it needs to be taken seriously.
“If they say they cannot do elections online it is important to understand why that is the case, what the concerns are or whether or not they can look into other options. The context is important to not just narrow it down to whether people were unable to vote,” she said.