This year’s Stellenbosch University (SU) Student Representative Council (SRC) election garnered the second highest number of votes of the past five years, according to Maxwell Mlangeni, 2020 election convenor.
A total of 3 543 votes were cast in this year’s election, Mlangeni said. This was bested only by the 4 100 votes cast in 2018, he said.
The election results were announced via the Maties Elections social media pages, on 25 August.
Accordng to Mlangeni, who was also an SRC election convenor in 2019, the number of people in attendance at the SRC caucuses was higher than usual as well.
“As someone who was also an election convenor last year, I’ll tell you that last year didn’t have a good turnout. You would [usually] get less than 50 people attending caucuses. On the first day alone [this year] we had about 50 to 100 students attending,” he said.
A total of 3 543 students voted in the recent Student Representative Council election. Out of the 25 candidates who applied, 20 were ultimately selected to be nominees, according to Maxwell Mlangeni, 2020 election convenor.
During this year’s election period, 438 students were in attendance over seven caucuses, said Mlangeni.
New SRC ready to face challenges
According to one newly elected SRC member, Unathi Ngumbela, although the nomination and election process was different this year due to Covid-19, it was still successful.
“I didn’t have any dissatisfaction with the process. I feel like people received the campaigns well and they engaged,” said Ngumbela.
According to Ngumbela, the biggest challenge for the new SRC is going to be uniting the student body under a sense of normality, once lockdown restrictions are eased further and the majority of students return to campus.
Out of 20 candidates, nine Stellenbosch University students have been elected for the 2020/2021 Student Representative Council body. PHOTO: Instagram/ Maties_elections
Past chairperson looks to the future
Lewis Mboko, SRC chairperson for the 2019/2020 leadership term, told MatieMedia that he is happy with the outcome of the recent election and he is also satisfied with the accomplishments of his SRC team.
“If I have to look back on our term, it was [about] making sure that every student at Stellenbosch University felt welcomed regardless of their financial status or their background,” he said.
According to Mboko, he hopes that the incoming SRC will ensure that students will be served in a similar manner.
The new SRC term starts on the first day of the fourth academic term, 21 September, Mboko said.
The new chairperson will be elected in the coming weeks.