Durban - The ANC-aligned student body Sasco has attributed its loss of control of three major universities in KwaZulu-Natal to the EFF Student Command (EFFSC) to infighting that made it lose touch with student issues.
On Monday Sasco held a press conference during which it blamed its woes on the power struggle within the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA).
The PYA comprises Sasco, the ANC Youth League, the Young Communist League and the Congress of SA Students.
Sasco recently lost Student Representative Council elections to the EFFSC at the Durban University of Technology, University of Zululand and Mangosuthu University of Technology, institutions known as ANC and IFP strongholds.
“These losses are only attributable to our own internal weaknesses, as opposed to the strength of our ideological opponents.
“We view the message of students as a wake-up call for Sasco and PYA to conduct introspection and reconnect with the basic issues affecting the student community,” said Sasco provincial chairperson Mqondisi Duma.
Sasco managed to retain the central SRC at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and four other campuses.
The EFFSC won the Westville campus of UKZN.
Duma said the loss was exaggerated as Sasco had only lost three universities and one campus (Westville) out of 102 SRC elections held this year, including those of Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges.
Sasco provincial treasurer Lusanda Zwane said the organisation had suffered because of people who had seen it “as a fast vehicle to get to the structures of governance (SRC positions)”.
She said the PYA power struggle happened in part because its member organisations also wanted to be in the SRCs at any cost.