Campus Political Violence: IEC must run student elections

The IEC has opted out of running a number of SRC elections this year, citing work for next year's elections as a priority. The DA Youth is concerned that the absence of the IEC is creating space for increased levels of political intolerance and violence on campuses.

The SRC election season kicked off this week and it had a very bad start. In the last week alone, the DA Youth leadership has been physically assaulted by SASCO members at the University of Limpopo, whilst a stabbing incident occurred between members of SASCO and DASO at the Tshwane University of Technology's (TUT) Polokwane Campus.

The SRC election result at the TUT's Soshanguve campus is also in doubt - with the number of ballots cast eclipsing the number of voters on the voters' roll. There was also a very large number of spoilt ballots in this election. The IEC did not supervise this election.

The Democratic Alliance Student's Organisation (DASO) has already lodged a complaint with university management as the legitimacy of the TUT Soshanguve election outcome is clearly in doubt.

The IEC must take responsibility to safeguard democratic processes at all levels. Given the events of this week, we are not satisfied that elections will be free, fair and peaceful on all campuses without the IEC's supervision.

We call on the IEC to prioritise SRC elections on campuses. I will report these incidents to the DA's IEC PLC members. They will take it up at a high level.

Statement issued by Yusuf Cassim, DA Youth Chairperson, August 23 2013

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