election season and most of you gave me the ick

Let’s just say the 2022 SRC presidential manifestos, blew me away, and not in a good way. So, I’m just going to leave our impressions of the candidates here:

The impressions of the presidential candidates varied on their style, but two things certain individuals had in common was their propensity to tear their competition down or say things that left my mouth wide open for the majority of the presentations.

A stand out here was Angela Monaheng, who is affiliated with Action SA. In a response to a question on allegations of xenophobia against Action SA she said the following “the misconception is that it’s for all foreigners or for all people who are out of the country, and that’s not true. The thing is, it’s when illegal immigrants are causing crimes, kidnapping our children, raping our women, human trafficking, and if you can think about it from a logical sense, would you not clean your house before you invite guests. [...] I love everyone. Action SA loves everyone. [...] We’re inclusive [...] That xenophobic stuff. No. No. That’s not for us”. In other words, her response can be summated as follows – we are not xenophobic, but we hate foreigners.

Another stand-out was orator Liam CHAD Jacobs who really embodied a spirit of kayfabe that only a seasoned pro-wrestler could show (thanks for teaching me a new word Banathi). Liam won the attention of the piazza while running not only his mouth but his legs back and forth in front of students, while baking in the sun. Liam Jacobs seemed to attempt to appeal to middle to upper-middle class students, by presenting three main issues: registration, parking, and safety. I have to wonder if Jacobs is genuinely out of touch with the reality of student issues or if he carefully selected three problems that he knows would garner favour from a certain demographic of students, but ultimately has no or very limited solutions. What are you going to do about parking and safety that years of SRC members have been unable to? However, this remains to be seen. What was seen though was Jacob’s confidence and boisterous energy, which seemed to garner favour from certain students present?

Next up we saw SASCO candidate, Sicelo Ngwenya, who recognised his “main” competition from the outset and set his eyes on Liam Jacobs. Remarking on how Jacobs is a reject and failed experiment of SASCO, he played his cards widely by banking on Jacob’s party switching history to allude to an idea that Jacobs might lack political conviction. In doing so he seemed to garner some legitimacy for the SASCO cause because even DASO’s leading figure was described as a SASCO by-product. However, Ngwenya did not solely focus on Jacobs and took questions regarding transformation, GBV, and other issues in stride.

On the other hand, we saw Neville Mupita, a previous SRC member, who was unremarkable in any shape or form. This was due to his poor decision making that led him to point out his role in an effective previous SRC which garnered a uniquely negative reception from the crowd. It seemed that everyone appealed to someone – yet Neville appealed to no one.

Next up on the block is Sizwe, who seemed to appeal to poorer students and who took a unique approach by not presenting a manifesto, yet still received cheers from the ranks of the EFFSC. Although his approach was unique, it left much to be desired and left me feeling like he rocked up to a job interview without any understanding of the job before him. But hat’s off to him.

Speaking of the EFF, the next speaker was the EFFSC’s presidential candidate Njabulo Sibeko. He was more substance than form and seemed to display a wide knowledge of the problems students are facing. I will say, that although I found myself put off by the political affiliations of all the presidential candidates, Njabulo seemed to be among the group of candidates who were more well-read, and struck a nice balance between roasting his fellow candidates while also answering student questions with a good amount of flair.

The last candidate on the roster was Varnu Govender, who presented his manifesto the day before the other candidates, but unfortunately, his absence affected his ability to be contrasted against his competition.

Although, the candidates touched on their plans for the year, what stood out was their responses to genuine and pressing student questions. Some students are inevitably going to cast their vote in favour of one of these candidates. All I have to say is, although I was entertained during this “circus”, why should I even cast my vote when, as a student, I was amongst a group who was on the receiving end of large amounts of condescension by these same candidates? Not only condescension but what came across as a general disregard for real student issues.

But I also have to wonder how our future president is going to address the 2023 increase, no matter their method, considering that the 2022 SRC tried and was unsuccessful.

Until next time, Leah and Banathi