Pasma in historic Fort Hare victory

History was made yesterday when the Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania (Pasma) won student elections at the University of Fort Hare’s East London campus.

Pasma suddenly shot up to clinch the win thanks to infighting between two ANC-aligned student movements – the South African Student Congress (Sasco) and ANC Youth League.

The Dispatch reported yesterday that ANCYL at the campus had vowed to defy ANC orders that they support Sasco, and supporters opted to vote for Pasma instead.

IEC provisional results confirmed that Pasma, which has never run the institution, won the majority of the seats at the campus.

However, Sasco regained Alice which has been run by Daso since 2015 and also retained the Bhisho campus.

Although Sasco now also governs the university’s student representative council, the victory was not an easy one.

ANCYL chairman Banzi Nkitha, denied the league had instructed supporters to vote for Pasma but said if they had been treated “differently” by the secretary-general of the ANCYL the outcome could have been different.

“If things were sorted out differently, all of this could have been avoided. It is painful to us to see a campus ruled by an opposition,” said Nkitha.

Members of the youth league in the East London campus were seen outside campus openly declaring their vote for Pasma.

Pasma chairman Zukisani Nyewe told the Daily Dispatch that the breakdown of relations between Sasco and ANCYL had worked to their advantage.

He said however the amount of work they had put in to win support should not be overlooked.

“We are delighted about the outcome,” he said Nyewe.

Sasco chairman Phumlani Msenge conceded defeat in the East London campus but said the hard work of the organisation had won them the Institutional SRC.

“Sasco is now leading the University of Fort Hare,” he said.

In the provisional results provided by the university in the institutional SRC, Sasco led the polls with 51% and was followed by Pasma with 18%.

Daso was barred from taking part in the elections after they missed the March 24 deadline of submitting the list of candidates.

However, in the East London campus the organisation won 537 of a total of 2060 votes.

Daso Fort Hare constituency leader Hlomela Bucwa said they accepted the East London campus results but were still going to seek recourse in the courts on the Alice campus matter.

“Right now we are going to lodge objections with IEC on the proceedings of yesterday’s elections and the failure to acknowledge previous objections lodged by Daso to the IEC,” said Bucwa.