The DA notes the spectacular electoral victory in the SRC election at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The DA won the election for the first time in September 2011, with a very narrow majority of 200 votes. This enabled the DASO (Democratic Students Organisation) to implement its electoral manifesto and deal with the real issues that impact on students’ everyday lives and their concomitant challenges.
A year after good student governance and the fulfilment of a realistic and coherent electoral manifesto the DASO went into yesterday’s election quietly confident that they would be given a renewed mandate to govern the NMMU SRC.
What happened in fact yesterday was an unprecedented and record "LANDSLIDE" electoral victory for DASO, where they won 16 of the 21 seats on the SRC. Additionally, DASO has won all four Site Representative Portfolio's, all Faculty Council Seats and 7 out of 8 Oppidani Council Seats. This historical victory in fact confirms and reinforces the fact that all voters, including students, wish for good governance and governability. This is in fact also an important rejection of the poor governance and characteristic "ungovernability" of the ANC aligned SASCO.
What is of grave concern however is the undemocratic and thuggish behaviour of SASCO aligned students, who when they came to learn of their imminent crushing defeat, resorted to switching off the electricity, invading a voting station and stealing a Ballot box (which had fortunately already been counted). This behaviour is an ominous portent of things to come in future elections where the ANC will come under more and more pressure as shown by the DA's by election results yesterday.
This election result is not only a resounding endorsement of the incumbent DASO led SRC leadership in this university but is also a significant momentum shift for DASO campaigns on all the other tertiary institution campuses across the country. In this regard we also note the biased and spurious reasons for non-recognition and non-registration of DASO on some campuses such as Fort Hare University.
DASO like the DA is more and more being embraced by voters as a competent and realistic alternative to SASCO and the ANC.
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