The results of the 2015 Wits Student Representative Council elections were announced and the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) won with 12 seats of the 15 seats available.
Earlier today Vice Principal Professor Andrew Crouch announced that the PYA won 12 of the 15 seats available. With Project W winning the remaining 3.
Electoral Officer Jabu Mashinini announced that there were 6973 valid votes, 688 spoilt ballots and the total turn out of students that voted this year was 7 661, 469 people more than the 7 192 total votes received in 2014.
In last year’s election (2014/2015) the PYA won 9 seats with Project W winning 6 seats. As with last years election both the Wits EFF and the Democratic Alliance’s Student Organization (DASO) did not receive any seats.
Thamsanqa Pooe, who was running for re-election received the highest number of votes at 3517 votes even though his party (Project W) did not win the election.
Obett Motaung and Lesego Mokwena, both of the Progressive Youth Alliance, received the least number of votes at 2705 votes each.
The current SRC’s Deputy President Omhle Ntshingila said “We are overly excited, the elections went well, they were fair and square. Students are in safe hands”.
A disappointed Thamsanqa Pooe said he that even though there were only 3 Project W members in the SRC, he was certain that students wouldn’t lose out. “In as much as there’s only 3 of us in the SRC, its 3 of our strongest candidates. 3 of the most genuine guys. 3 of the most hard working guys”, Pooe said.
Newly elected education student Ontiretse Phetlu said this win would definitely benefit the often forgotten education campus students, “I want to affirm to them (education students) that their voices will be represented…its the first step, I hope that they will take our victory as an inspiration” Phetlu said.
DASO’s Odwa Abraham says as an organisation their main mandate in this year’s election was to re-introduce themselves to the student community. ” Our plan this year was to be visible because we ‘disappeared’ last year. We are very happy with how things turned out, the response of the students was positive…so we achieved our mandate”, Abraham said.
Here is the list of the 15 candidates, the number of votes they received and their parties (in order of highest votes):
