SASCO duly elected in DFC after an automatic walk-over

By Gaby Ndongo

SASCO DFC branch was duly elected on the 29^th of March as the campus official students’ representative body after an automatic walk-over.

The Election Consulting Agency of Africa, EMCA, announced during the late hours of March 29^th through posters that no voting was to take place in DFC as SASCO was the only candidate running for the election.

This was an unavoidable result of the Economic Freedom Fighters Students Command (EFFSC), which holds the position of being the only opposition to SASCO in DFC, early walk-out from the UJSRC election.

“We didn’t pull out; we just didn’t want to legitimize an illegitimate process, because it is illegitimate that those people [EMCA] come here masking under the name of the IEC [Independent Election Commission] whereas they are not,” said the EFFSC DFC branch’s task team convener Molomautau Mphahlele.

“I can’t say, in fact, I don’t really agree with the fact that we are boycotting the election as the EFF[SC] DFC. We said we are not contesting for the election,” said the coordinator of the branch.

The secretary of SASCO-DFC Neo Ramere said, “in electoral terms it was an automatic walk-over”. In other words, there was no independent or other student representative body running for the election to oppose SASCO. It was to be wasteful expenditure by printing out ballots papers and setting up a tent in the campus if the election was to take place. Therefore, the election facilitator decided to call off the election.

The EFFSC withdrew from the UJSRC election since February and called upon all UJ students to boycott the elections. Due to a “lack of an impartial election facilitator, IEC, which is being replaced with a private facilitator EMCA that is owned by UJ management. Hence making the UJSRC elections corrupt and undemocratic.”

SASCO, on the other hand, could not pull out as it regards itself as a vanguard of its constituencies (students) needs and wants, said Ramere. Moreover, those of have lost in the past previous years have always sought to take the election vacillator to court.