ROAD TO 2024: The 2024 elections have already begun, with student parties tied to national parties vying for control of the SRCs. So far the EFF is winning, writes Zukile Majova.
The first round of the 2024 national elections is currently underway in students’ representative council (SRC) polls at various colleges and universities.
In the past these elections were left to just the students and had little to no bearing on the wellbeing of political parties in Parliament.
But things have changed.
College and university SRCs also control budgets that run into millions of rands, which can be used to further entrench the winning party in the student community.
At least six million young people between 18 and 39 are still not registered to vote in the 2024 national general elections.
But almost two million young people, all of voting age, form part of the college and university community in South Africa.
The EFF recently announced plans to extend the resources and capacity of the EFF Student Command beyond colleges and universities.
On Wednesday night students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal poured out of their residences onto the city streets recruiting for the main contenders, the EFF-aligned EFFSC and the ANC-aligned SA Students Congress (Sasco). This was ahead of elections on Thursday.
It was the same story at the University of Limpopo. The EFFSC beat both Sasco and the DA-aligned DA Students Organisation to take control of the University of Cape Town while the EFFSC has long been in control of Wits University in Johannesburg.
The young Fighters who won at the University of Venda and numerous TVET college SRCs were also at the centre of a public spat between the ANC Youth League and ANC National Chairman Gwede Mantashe.
Mantashe dismissed demands by the ANCYL for the ANC to reserve 50% of all political oversight positions in all spheres of government for the ANCYL.
Mqwathi, as Mantashe is affectionately known, said the young lions were driving a self-enrichment strategy for their members.
“The same youth league is losing all campuses. The EFF is taking all campuses while the youth league is there.
“When I spoke to them, I said: ‘You are going to lose the campuses because you are focusing on things that have nothing to do with you.’”
Student movements will be important to political parties in the run-up to the next elections because they use their political power at universities to invite the leadership of the mother organisation to address students with little to no say from the council that governs the university.
In a highly contested election, in some provinces the youth vote could be the swing vote.
