the student rePresentative CounCil (srC)

In his second year at Fort hare, Nelson Mandela was nominated to stand for the Student Representative Council (SRC), which was the highest student organization at Fort hare. the entire student body elected the six members of the SRC. the students felt that the diet at Fort hare needed to be improved and that the powers of the SRC should be increased beyond the level of rubber stamp approval for administrative policy. A majority of students, including Nelson Mandela, voted to boycott the elections unless both demands were met.

Only twenty-five students showed up for the elections but they elected the usual 6 representatives. Mandela and the other 5 elected students met to discuss the issue. they all agreed to resign on the grounds that they supported the boycott and, in addition, did not have the support of the majority of students. they presented a letter expressing these beliefs to the principal, Dr. Alexander Kerr.

he accepted their resignations but called for new elections the following day during suppertime to ensure that all students would be present for the vote. Again, however, only the same 25 students voted to return the same 6 SRC members. but this time, Mandela’s colleagues believed that, because all the students had been present for the elections, they could no longer maintain that they did not represent the student body.

Mandela did not accept their argument and stood by his position that nothing had changed materially. A majority of students had not voted; it would be “morally incorrect” to claim that they “enjoyed the confidence” of the entire student body. their “initial goal”, he insisted, had been to “boycott the election”. In that motion they had had the confidence of the student body. their “duty” was “to abide by that resolution and not to be deterred” by the principal’s “trickery”. he could not persuade his colleagues to accept his position and was the only one of the group to resign for the second time.