Students brawl, use pepper spray in SRC elections

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Cape Town - The ANC-affiliated SA Students Congress (Sasco) and the PAC’s Pasma were believed to be behind a disruption which led to a brawl, with some students allegedly pepper-sprayed on Sunday at the District Six campus of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. The incident was captured in a video which went viral on social media. The EFF Student Command chairperson in District Six, Sipho Mokoena, said the parties had been trying to sabotage SRC elections as the EFF had been winning. "The party had a clean sweep at the Bellville Campus at the weekend. “The (opposition) is blaming it on the IEC company. The real reason Pasma and Sasco are disrupting is because they can't stomach the loss of power. EFFSC actually won with a gap of 453 votes at District Six, so even if they remove the 22 votes we still win.” Sasco and Pasma claimed the elections were rigged, as students from the Mowbray campus voted twice; in Mowbray and District Six. “Yes, 22 Mowbray students voted, but it's not a fact that they voted for EFF. How do the other parties know all of those students voted for us? We were informed that the students who voted in Cape Town from Mowbray were actually Pasma members, so this was well-orchestrated.”

Sasco chairperson in District Six Lutho Runeli said: “Everything was running smoothly. During a break we found out the names of students at the Mowbray campus appeared again at this campus, meaning they voted twice for EFF.

“We halted the votes, but the company and the EFF forcefully proceeded.

"That's when the chaos and the fighting started. The company came with an idea to move the counting to the Bellville campus, but we rejected that as it is unconstitutional.

"A meeting was held again and an agreement was reached to continue and not count those 22 students.”

Pasma could not be reached for comment. Central Student Representative Council president Phathindwe Mncamas said CPUT was going to conduct an investigation.

CPUT spokesperson Lauren Kansley said: “Disruptions between various political structures last week led to the counting process being disrupted.

"The Independent Election Agency is in consultation with all structures.”

On Monday, the organisations contesting the SRC elections at the CPUT District Six campus reached an agreement, paving the way for counting of votes. This as the SRC elections at the University of the Western Cape were expected to take place this week.

The EFFSC has claimed victory at UCT after it booted the DA Student Organisation out of power two weeks ago.

Cape Times