Once home to a thriving lesbian and gay community, Yeoville is now filled with homophobic attitudes and hatred, effectively cutting out a significant part of the community- its LGBTIs. With little to no structural support in the area, people are forced to either rely on one another and face possible condemnation, or struggle in silence.
They cannot rely on the police for assistance, as many of them are illegal immigrants and believe that regardless of their nationality, they would not be helped. Roxanne Joseph looks at how Yeoville’s lesbian, gay, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community has been scared in silence, experiencing regular harassment and frequent vicious attacks, including being beaten in the streets and raped.
It was just after midnight when David* left a bar on Yeoville’s busy Rockey Street to make a phone call. He left his friends inside and walked out onto the street alone.
A 28-year-old Congolese man, David has been living openly as a gay man in Yeoville for nearly a decade. So when a group of men silently walked towards him, he knew what was about to happen.
“I knew what was coming,” he says, speaking months later from the safety of a coffee shop in what he sees as a gay-friendly Melville.
The men quickly had him on the ground, kicking him in the ribs, face, groin and back. The blows stung. Helpless, he curled up into a ball, waiting for it to be over.
RISK ON ROCKEY: While Yeoville used to have a thriving lesbian and gay community, it is now considered dangerous to be an openly gay member of the community. LGBTIs are regularly attacked all over the area, and many of these vicious attacks have taken place outside Rockey Street’s nightclubs and bars. Photo: Roxanne Joseph
Around him, the air was thick with each blow, his lungs felt heavier and his breathing slowed. Hopeless, he gave up almost immediately on trying to shield his body as their black boots struck him, crunching and cracking.
“I decided not to fight back, that just isn’t me. I hate violence. I just prayed for them to stop and, eventually, I guess they’d had enough and they just walked away, laughing and talking loudly.”
He heard voices in the distance and the steady beat of loud music from the club above him. He started to cry, suddenly afraid that his tears would spur his attackers on, causing them to inflict even more pain on his already broken body.
“Every day I live in fear that I will be attacked again,” says David. His decision to live openly as a gay man was not an easy one. And it has come at a high cost.
It was the physical attack, and its brutality, that changed him the most, forcing him for the first time to try and hide his sexuality from the homophobic gaze of his neighbours and to spend more time away from Yeoville.
“I’m scared, nervous. I worry about what will happen if I’m too open.”
‘Attacked because he was gay’
David is not the only member of Yeoville’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community to have been attacked in the area. Although no official figures exist, members of the gay community recall a number of homophobic attacks over the past few years.
Afterwards, his friends found him lying on the street, bleeding and crying. David did not ask them if they had seen what had happened. He knew they would probably be too afraid to admit it if they had.
David’s friends wanted to take him to the hospital, but he refused and asked to be taken home instead.
David is tall, gangly and soft-spoken, going about things in a very gentle manner. The way he greets, stirs sugar into his coffee and describes his story is slow and placid, as if trying not to draw attention to himself.
Every time he talks about what happened, his voice cracks and he anxiously taps his fingers against the table, forcing himself to carry on. He says he wants people to know what happened, so that “things can get better”.
The men who attacked him did not try to steal his money. They did not take his phone from where he had dropped it when the attack began. They simply beat him viciously before running away, laughing and shouting. David can only think he was attacked because he was gay.
“They didn’t say anything the entire time, but I recognised some of them, had seen them watching me before, staring at me like I’m not normal, like being gay makes me look different.”
David never reported the crime, believing the police would not take the attack seriously because he is gay. He is also an illegal immigrant, without documentation to stay in South Africa, and he feared he would be arrested if he tried to lay a complaint.
David is one of many members of the Yeoville gay community who have endured attacks because of their sexuality.
Scared into silence
Few are willing to share the details of their experiences or reveal their identities because they are fearful of what the consequences of speaking out might be.
FREE TO BE ME: Dorcas Ncube, originally from Zimbabwe, is one of the few members of the LGBTI community who is willing to speak about his experiences as a transgendered gay man, living and working in Yeoville. He is regularly harassed, but is determined to be open about his sexuality, despite homophobic attitudes throughout the community. Photo: Roxanne Joseph
Sarah*, a lesbian woman and a black South African, has lived in Yeoville for five years and said the fear of being “found to be gay or lesbian” is very real, especially for women. Last year she was raped by three men who told her they were trying to “fix” her.
“Men I believed were harmless, but actually, they’re monsters,” she says, trying to hold back the tears as she recalls her experience.
She was walking home one night carrying a plastic shopping bag in her hand when a group of men grabbed her. They took her to an empty park where they shoved her to the ground. One of them held her hands above her head, the other pinned her feet to the ground, the third raped her. Then they swapped places and swapped again before they were done.
Much like David, Sarah’s experience has made her afraid to speak out, but she chooses to continue to live openly as a lesbian woman in Yeoville. She too hopes that talking about what happened to her will help to make the situation better for Yeoville’s LGBTI community.
She says many people in Yeoville are afraid to admit they are lesbian, gay or transgendered because of the likelihood of vicious attacks. They hear stories about gay men being attacked in the light of day and women who are dragged behind buildings and raped. They fear what might happen to them.
This fear keeps them from organising. They do not meet regularly, nor do they have a support group of any kind. They occasionally hang out at nightclubs in the area and, once a year, brave the possibility of being harassed and attacked by holding a small pride party.
“It’s a chance to spend time together and celebrate who we are,” says Dorcas Ncube, a transgendered gay man from Zimbabwe.
“Sis’ Dorcas”, as he is called by people who know him, works at his brother’s hair salon and is openly gay with his customers, friends and family. However, this does not mean he is any less afraid of being victimised.
But there are not many like Ncube, who is one of the few gay people in Yeoville willing to be identified by name in this article. Their fear is constant because the LGBTIs are regularly told they are unwelcome. A casual conversation with many people living in Yeoville reveals deep-seated homophobia.
“I hate them,” Frank, a hairdresser on Rockey Street, says cheerfully. He would not give his surname.
“They’re all devil worshippers,” he adds. He stops braiding a woman’s hair to curl his fingers above his head in the shape of horns for emphasis.
Frank, a religious man, says he would never be violent towards a gay person but attends church every Sunday and prays that God will “take care of these people”.
“They should all go to prison,” he says, before quickly changing his mind. “No, wait, that’s where this stuff happens. They should all just be killed.”
This attitude is familiar to David. When asked to walk around Yeoville, he reluctantly agrees, pointing out where fellow members of the gay community have been attacked (“that corner, behind that building”, “in the back room of that club” and “in that park, where the kids play”).
His entire demeanour is different in Yeoville. He moves between moments of being comfortable and others where he is nervous and his body begins to physically shake.
Dorcas Ncube, a transgender gay man living in Yeoville faces harassment on a daily basis. By: Roxanne Joseph
Homophobia vs xenophobia
It was not always like this. Yeoville was once the home of a thriving gay and lesbian community in the 1970s and ’80s. The neighbourhood at the time was one of apartheid’s “gray areas” where black and white residents mixed.
Gabriel Kahn, the youth director of Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (Gala), says this changed when the city “began to fragment” in the 1990s. The white population moved out and African immigrants moved in. The city neglected the CBD and surrounding areas, leading to damage and decay in some parts.
Today, Yeoville is filled with migrants and refugees, mostly from Africa, who have come to South Africa for a number of different reasons, including fleeing homophobic laws and attitudes in their home countries.
“A small minority come because of their sexual orientation and the belief that our progressive laws can protect them,” says Kahn. “But when they arrive here, they often have to stay with people from their home countries and then they don’t really get to escape the homophobia … they might have been experiencing back home.”
Even though South Africa has laws which are meant to protect people based on their sexual orientation, Kahn says this is not always put into practice by authorities who may also be xenophobic in addition to being homophobic.
“When people arrive here they have a double whammy of prejudice,” Kahn says.
This makes it difficult for people like David to navigate his day-to-day life, always afraid to step out of line but struggling to make an honest living, because of how he is treated.
“I work a bit, but I can’t get a proper job, no one will have me,” he says. He is not clear if this is because he is an immigrant or gay but hints at both having caused problems for him in the past.
On the surface, South Africa has been a leading nation in advancing LGBTI rights. It was the first country in the world to recognise LGBTI rights as human rights in its Constitution and one of the first to recognise gay marriage.
JOHANNESBURG PRIDE: Although Johannesburg Pride was held far away from Yeoville (in Sandton) this year, many of the area’s residents attended, as they felt it was one of the few opportunities they have to be open members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community. Photo: Roxanne Joseph
However, despite this, the attitudes of many South Africans are deeply homophobic. Gay people, in poorer areas in particular, suffer from a lack of support from the authorities and their families.
“They’re afraid of corrective rape and of being killed.”
Nthanthla* has not yet come out to her family because she is scared of what they will think of her. She says the only support the Yeoville gay community has is each other but “even that is limited”. Many people are not willing to be openly gay and even fewer are prepared to come out as lesbian.
“They’re afraid of corrective rape and of being killed,” she says.
Many are also afraid of going to the authorities. Khan says it might be more dangerous for them to go to the police when they are attacked. “A big problem in South Africa is the implementation of law and policy. Many believe gays are asking for ‘special rights’.
“We are just being asked to be treated equally to other people.”
David agrees, explaining this was the reason he did not want to go to the police when he was attacked and beaten.
Standing on a street in Yeoville, he points a finger towards the police station and angrily jerks his head in the opposite direction saying: “I would actually run the other way if they came near me. They know who of us are gay and they would rather put us in jail than those who hurt us.”
Safer in Yeoville
There are a number of NGOs in South Africa who work with the gay community. Many of them operate in the city centre and cater to surrounding areas, including Yeoville.
But Kahn says many of these organisations have had to downsize in the past few years. South Africa is often seen by the outside world as a “success story”, offering reduced motivation to invest funding.
In addition to a lack of funding, according to Kahn, there is a further challenge because gay rights NGOs are “notoriously bad” at dealing with migrant and immigration issues like those facing members of Yeoville’s gay community.
David now prefers to socialise in gay-friendly areas of Johannesburg like Melville and Braamfontein. But he says he will continue to live in Yeoville.
It has been his home for nearly a year now and he has become a part of a close-knit gay community, which is important to him.
“I know it sounds crazy, because many of these people hate who I am, but I feel like I belong. I have friends, who are like my family, here in Yeoville,” David says.
He gazes fondly at Club 28, which is where their pride party will be held in the coming weeks. He refuses to go inside now though, explaining that without his friends, he is not comfortable there.
Like many other Congolese immigrants in the area, he came to South Africa to escape violence in his home country. His dream is to become a writer, as he has a passion for poetry, but says he is forced to do “odd jobs here and there” just to survive. He rents a tiny room in a small house, where he cooks, entertains and sleeps.
He does not know if he will ever go back, explaining that he likes South Africa but is concerned by the attitude of his neighbours: “It is meant to be a liberal African country, how can they discriminate just because I am gay?”
David says that no matter where he lives, he will be discriminated against and wonders if — despite the harassment — Yeoville isn’t perhaps “one of the safer areas” in Johannesburg. With such a diverse community, he hopes things will get better one day.
“More people should come to our pride parties. They’re great, they show the people of Yeoville that we’re just like them.” He pauses, laughs and adds: “Except we’re more fun.”
FEATURED IMAGE: Dorcas Ncube, originally from Zimbabwe, is one of the few members of the LGBTI community who is willing to speak about his experiences as a transgendered gay man, living and working in Yeoville. He is regularly harassed, but is determined to be open about his sexuality, despite homophobic attitudes throughout the community. Photo: Roxanne Joseph
Nkandla is much more than just a story about a very, very expensive house, according to investigative journalist Sam Sole, one of the members of the Mail & Guardian’s amaBhungane team.
Sole, Lionel Faull and Craig McKunne, three of the journalists who helped uncover and develop the “creation of a presidential palace” in 2012, spoke on Monday at the annual Power Reportingconference about their work on the story dating back to 2009.
Nkandla documents ‘repeated gumpf’
The team spent weeks compiling the data they had received, after months of filing and pushing for the promotion of access to information act (PAIA). After being turned down and appealing several times, they were eventually handed 42 lever arch files, containing 12 000 pages of documents, which they had to copy through a single scanner. The team, comprising of 8 people, split the workload and spent an entire weekend scanning.
Sole said that the team did not know how long they had to deal with the information provided. “We got an exclusive, but in a story that is embarrassing to government, they [the government] tend to make press statements and spoil the exclusive.”
Faull explained that a lot of the information was duplicated. “It was repeated ‘gumpf’, a tactic to slow us down and make it hard.”
The use of data journalism, combined with extensive probing and investigation revealed how much Zuma should have paid for the three private houses he started to build at the time of security upgrades (R19.5 million in total), as well as the fact that he would never have been able to afford it. It also allowed the team to create an “Nkandla phonebook”, which led them to useful contacts, some of whom were willing to speak.
The delegates who attended the session were from predominantly from other African countries and found the team’s investigation “impressive”, considering the amount of work it took to get the information.
There are very few investigative journalists around the continent, according to Panic Malawo Chifulya of the Zambia Daily Mail. “It is too risky,” she told Wits Vuvuzela. “We are all just all-rounders, covering a bit of everything.”
One of her colleagues, Rebecca Chileshe, explained that no editor would ever allow their journalists to conduct such an in-depth investigation, because they would “be the ones to lose their jobs”.
Chileshe spoke of a story she had done, which, if published, would embarrass the Zambian government. Her newspaper refused to publish the story and in the end, it was picked up by a smaller, private media house. According to her, this is one of many examples where stories have been swept under the carpet out of fear.
Margaret Samulela, of the same newspaper, also explained that such large legal costs would make it impossible to do the same type of story in Zambia and other such countries. “But this is happening in our country, it’s just that journalists aren’t able to investigate,” she said.
Daniel Öhman, of Swedish Radio, was one of the journalists who uncovered the Swedish-Saudi arms deal in 2012. Photo: TJ Lemon
When Swedish journalist Daniel Öhman heard the words “I got something for you” he knew he was onto something big.
Öhman, a Swedish Radio journalist who helped uncover his country’s secret arms deal with Saudi Arabia, was on a train when he got a phone call from an unknown person and simply given a meeting date and time. When he showed up, he was given an envelope, with a brief introduction to the story.
“Don’t give up after the first time you’ve seen them, try and try again.”
Öhman gave the opening address on the second day of the investigative journalism conference, Power Reporting, earlier today.
The most important thing, said Öhman, is that his team never gave up. “If you have a person who is crucial to your story, don’t give up after your first phone call, or your second. Don’t give up after the first time you’ve seen them, try and try again”, he said.
The Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) had plans to help Saudi Arabia build an advanced arms factory in the desert. Known as Project Simoom, it began in 2007 and was exposed by a group of journalists five years later.
Two years before the operation officially began, Sweden signed a “military cooperation treaty” with the Saudi regime. The agreement was to assist the Saudi government in the building of its own weapons industry, but everything was “top secret”, according to Öhman.
In the two months that followed the initial story, which exposed the Swedish government, 5 400 articles were published in local media while the international media continuously reported on developments in the story while plans to build the weapons factory were stopped and the Swedish defence minister was forced to resign.
“It is not like in other countries, where you can be killed”
One of the biggest challenges they faced was gaining the public’s trust. They knew right from the start that the government was lying and “we needed to make sure people believed in us and not in government agencies”, Ohman said.
Öhman said the situation for journalists in Sweden as very different to that of other countries. While the team were undermined and threatened by government officials, at no point did they fear for their lives. “It is not like in other countries, where you can be killed,” he said.
We chat to Vanessa Lynch, founder of the DNA project, a project aimed at advancing justice by increasing the use of DNA evidence. And we wrap up with an interview with Lynne Cawood, director of Childline Gauteng, who talks to us about dealing with the trauma caused by crime and violence in South Africa.
The Science Inside, the show that goes inside the science of major news events, is produced by Paul McNally, Anina Mumm, DJ Keyez and Lutfiyah Suliman for The Wits Radio Academy. Tune in live to VowFM every Monday at 6pm.
If the full podcast does not load automatically, please click here.
BRANCHING OUT: Braamfontein is set to become an extension of the Wits campus. The university will take responsibility for the upgrade of facilities in the area. Photo: Roxanne Joseph
Wits University is to receive R30 million from the City of Johannesburg for the upgrade of facilities in Braamfontein.
Wits vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Adam Habib has confirmed that an agreement has been reached with city officials which will allow the university to extend the campus beyond its current borders in Braamfontein.
As part of the agreement Wits will take responsibility for part of Braamfontein’s lighting, security and paving, as well as the upgrade of a number of buildings in the area over the next three to five years.
“We are looking to colonise the area,” Habib said. He has met with the mayor of Johannesburg, Parks Tau and City manager, Trevor Fowler, who have agreed to provide financial support to Wits for the project.
In addition, Wits is in negotiations to “borrow” bandwidth from the city to increase Internet access and availability across the campus.
As part of the upgrade, international technology company IBM will locate its Braamfontein research lab on the Wits campus. This is in order to support the university’s continued study in the origins of the universe and of human species.
In 2009, the university together with public and private funders invested R1.5 billion into upgrading campus infrastructure, including the Wits Art Museum, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital and education campus facilities.
According to Shirona Patel of Wits communications, the “investment had gone into new buildings and in upgrading existing infrastructure, which comprises more than 260 buildings.”
The facilities department is currently conducting a survey, looking at the need for student and staff accommodation and in an upcoming council meeting, will strategise ways to manage the Braamfontein build up so that it does not detract from “normal internal infrastructural duties,” Habib said.
Wits vice chancellor (VC) Prof Adam Habib has said the university will cooperate with the police investigation into an alleged rape of a student by a fellow student.
A 22-year-old female Witsie has accused a male student of date rape, after she found herself in his bed, unable to remember what had happened to her.
She woke up on Monday morning, after having drinks with him the night before and, according to reports, found condoms on the floor of his room.
The 30-year-old student suspect did not deny having sex with the woman when she asked him what had happened. According to police, the two were out at a local bar together when the complainant started to feel dizzy.
“The criminal investigation will take its own course, with the University cooperating fully,” Habib said, in a statement released by the Wits Sexual Harassment Office (SHO).
Jackie Dugard of the SHO told Wits Vuvuzela she has not yet met with the complainant, but has spoken to her over the phone.
“We have offered the complainant counselling and will see how further to proceed after a more in-depth conversation,” she said.
The accused student appeared in court on Thursday and his case has been postponed. According to Dugard, “… the university regards him as innocent until proven guilty.”
The university said that the incident, which happened off campus, was reported directly to the police by the complainant.
This case is the third of its kind at Wits this year. Earlier in the year a Wits student was raped off campus by two men who were not affiliated with the university and at the beginning of last month, a student was allegedly raped in her university residence.
This year marks 10 years since Wits Vuvuzela was first published. The award-winning community newspaper first launched its website in 2005 and since then, has gone on to publish its content on other forms of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
DIGS: Project W and SA Union of Jewish Students shared an office during the election campaign period as shown in this photo provided by political rivals the Progressive Youth Alliance.
Wits student organisation, Project W are being challenged on their apolitical and non-partisan stance, after they used the South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS) offices during the Student Representative Council (SRC) election period.
In a Facebook post, Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) candidate Shaeera Kalla called the organisation out for claiming to be “apolitical” and tweeted a photo of Project W posters on the door of the SAUJS office in the Matrix.
“This kind of sums Project W up. apolitical my foot!” wrote Kalla.
Project W has refused to get involved in non-student issues, including the recent war in Gaza. PYA has criticised this and accused the organisation of being funded by pro-Israel organisations such as SAUJS.
Project W and SAUJS maintain no affiliation
Project W member Tim Karayiannides emphasised that the party does not receive any support from SAUJS, “nor do we support SAUJS” and said the organisation merely lent them an office. He said Project W did not have its own office space and laid the blame for this at the PYA.
“SAUJS lent us their offices when we were failed by the PYA-led SRC that ought to be encouraging more robust political competition,” he said.
According to SRC president, Shafee Verachia, many new clubs and society organisations (CSOs), such as Project W which was founded last year, do not get office space.
“There is a mass shortage of resources for CSOs,” Verachia said. “It is not just Project W, but many clubs and societies which are affected by the university’s continuous lack of investment into student life and CSOs.”
SAUJS chairperson Ariela Carno denied Project W was working out of her organisation’s office. She said SAUJS was only “helping out” Project W.
“They stored some stuff in our office, which means that they are not functioning out of the SAUJS office. They merely used out office for some storage space.”
According to Carno, other societies did offer to help Project W, but SAUJS’ office was “just better located”.
Carno said SAUJS was not officially affiliated to Project W but “SAUJS had Jewish candidates running with Project W, hence SAUJS was supporting our Jewish candidates.”
Project W allegedly funded by SA Jewish community
Kalla also claimed Project W receives funding from the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), “whose headquarters are in Israel”. The SAJBD is based in Johannesburg and operates throughout South Africa.
Project W chairperson and SRC member Jamie Mighti, responded by saying his organisation and election campaign was funded by members.
“The organisation has about 200 guys who are really committed,” he said. “We have a budget of about R50 000 and most of that came from the candidates.”
Last month, he told Wits Vuvuzela that Project W candidates are required to contribute R1 000 to the campaign.
He explained that some of the candidates have more money than others, so they all put in different amounts. “I put R5 000 towards the campaign myself, because I believe in what we do.”
He called the attack on their funding by other parties and election candidates “malicious”, saying that rivals are trying to do is discredit the way Project W is run, “because it is different from the way their parties.”
Karayiannides backed up Mighti’s statement: “Project W has never accepted nor received money from the SAJBD. We have a number of Jewish supporters and candidates and may have had donors who happen to be Jewish.” He accused Kalla of anti-semitism.
The SAJBD was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
WITS VOLLEY: The Wits volleyball women’s team are aiming for the top three in the Gauteng Volleyball league, with their next match this coming Saturday. Photo: Roxanne Joseph
The Wits Volley ball women’s team is doing better than it has in the past five years, according to the captain, Sidhika Bharuth-Ram.
Their coach, George Fourie, a former player for South Africa, has turned the team around and has a knack for “developing people who don’t even know how to play the sport,” she said.
They are up against some tough competition but hope to make it to the top three in the Gauteng Volleyball league. Depending on the number of points they are awarded in the next few games, this Saturday and the following, they have a chance.
Bharuth-Ram said that in the University Sport of South Africa tournament, the team did really well. There was a lot of pressure on the team because Wits were the hosts. They had to practice and make sure everything was well organised, but they managed to make it to the top 10.
In the league, the team has “done really, really well” so far and are currently in the top three. Ever since the “The setter controls the game, where you want the ball to go and who you aim it at,” the team was moved from the lower premiums to the higher, they’ve faced “quite a bit of competition”, according to Thandeka Shabalala, the team’s newest player. They were doing well in the lowers and she is confident they will win this week’s match against KAD, a team from Johannesburg.
“The setter controls the game, where you want the ball to go and who you aim it at,”
Although volleyball is not a popular sport they have managed to attract some very promising players, according to Bharuth-Ram, “The dedication is amazing,” she told Wits Vuvuzela.
She completed her Honours in Accounting Science at Wits last year and has been playing for the team since 2010. She is the team’s setter, who is the “playmaker of the game”.
“The setter controls the game, where you want the ball to go and who you aim it at,” she said.
There are some first years on the team who only learnt about the game and began playing at the start of this year and have proven themselves as good, talented players. She describes the team as a “developing” one.
The team’s future looks “bright” but they face challenges including students who do not get bursaries and sometimes have to miss matches for work, especially on Saturday mornings.
I AM SRC: The SRC for 2014/2015 are made up of candidates from the Progressive Youth Alliance and Project W. No one candidates were elected from the Wits Economic Freedom Fighters. Photo: Tendai Dube
CORRECTION: The article initially and incorrectly stated that 31 000 votes had been cast during SRC elections, when only 7024 valid ballots were cast. 31 905 is the total voters roll, or number of students eligible to vote. Wits Vuvuzela regrets the error which has been corrected below.
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Two weeks of Student Representative Council (SRC) electoral campaigning ended on Thursday with the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) edging out Project W, nine seats to six.
Current SRC member, Jamie Mighti, who was running for re-election to the SRC, received the most votes, with 2 929 out of the total 7024 valid votes being cast.
“I’m very happy,” he told Wits Vuvuzela.
Political newcomers Wits Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) were completely shut out, with their members sitting at rock bottom on the candidate list. Despite this, they continued to sing and dance outside the Great Hall, after election results had been announced by dean of students Dr Pamela Dube, earlier today. They were joined by a mass of PYA supporters, kitted out in their yellow and black t-shirts.
Current SRC president and PYA member Shafee Verachia called Witsies “intelligent” for not voting for the EFF. “There was obviously stuff in the party’s manifesto that they clearly don’t like,” he said.
EFF candidate, Anele Nzimande said the party was “different” from the other organisations and said they would be continue to be active outside of the SRC. “Even though we didn’t win, we will still continue to work from the outside with the students,” Nzimande said.
Also notably absent from the winner’s row was PYA candidate Michlene Mongae, who is a member of the current SRC and was campaigning for re-election.
PYA candidate Mcebo Dlamini put the PYA’s win down to “loyalty”, saying that students voted for what they know.
7 192 students voted out of the approximately 30 000 at Wits, amounting to only 23% of the student population.
The SRC president will be announced later this month and will most likely be someone from the PYA, as they had the most candidates elected onto the SRC.
Mighti said that while Project W had hoped to be the dominant party, they were committed to working in partnership with the PYA.
The new SRC will take office on November 1 this year.
The SRC, in order of the number of votes received are as follows:
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
