Rehana Rossouw
THE low poll in Student Representative Council elections at the University of Cape Town has divided the student body, with black students citing racism as the reason white students didn’t vote.
SRC elections failed to achieve the required 25 percent poll, the first time SRC elections failed to attract enough voters to constitute an SRC.
A student assembly will be held on Friday to test whether the SRC constitution should be changed to meet the needs of students.
Outgoing SRC president Maxwell Fuzani said the student vote in previous years had always been “racist” and he believed one of the major reasons for the poor turnout at the ballot boxes this year was racism.
“Initially there were 13 black candidates and only six white candidates although the student population is predominantly white. Of the 16 000 students at UCT, only about 4 000 are black,” Fuzani said. “Since black students began participating in SRC elections a few years ago, it has been our experience that most white students vote for white candidates and most black students for black candidates.”
Fuzani said while there was no suggestion of racial tension between students, there was an enormous gulf between black and white expectations of the role of the