THE University of Limpopo yesterday refuted the ANC’s claim that the management of the university collaborated with the EFF in rigging the recent student representative council (SRC) elections so that the EFF won.
The EFF defeated the ANC-aligned Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA), which consisted of the ANC Youth League, the Young Communist League and the South African Students’ Congress (Sasco).
The EFF won 10 seats, the PYA secured five seats and the Student Christian Organisation received two seats.
University spokesperson, Kgalema Mohuba, said he overheard ANC provincial spokesperson, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, making this comment. He said he also heard her saying the ANC knew that the university’s management had always wanted the EFF to win.
Mohuba said the university’s management “rejects this despicable and libellous claim due to its lack of veracity at any level,” and was considering a number of options at its disposal to correct this “malicious” statement. “We will not allow our reputation and integrity to be besmirched in this manner. For the record, we had incident-free elections conducted by the IEC, a Chapter 9 institution which has an obligation to be impartial as enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa,” he said.
He said these unfortunate statements by Ntshaveni suggested that she did not have confidence in the credibility of the IEC including the deployed party agents who closely monitored this process.
“As a university, we are thankful to the IEC for their sterling work, and mostly to our student populace who were fully committed to this cause and ensured they supported all processes as established in the Electoral Code,” Mohuba said.
CV contacted Ntshaveni for clarity on the matter.
However, she declined to make any comment and referred CV to ANC Youth League provincial task team spokesperson, Musa Chabane.
Chabane requested CV to send him an e-mail in this regard before he could respond.
By the time of going to print, Chabane had not responded.
