It has been said that ‘if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen’. February 16 saw five disgruntled Student Representative Council (SRC) members storm out of what was allegedly a heated SRC meeting. The SRC Vice-President: External, Chrisna de Kock, had an animated debate with the SRC Vice President: Internal, Thabiso Letsoara, regarding issues such as the intervarsity cup and the code of conduct. According to de Kock, this is not the only meeting that has resulted in conflict. The repetitive nature of the conflict led to the eventual erosion of de Kock’s emotional control until finally she could not take it anymore and left the meeting.
De Kock admitted that there is tension among the SRC members saying that while there are some communication problems they are nothing that can’t be resolved in time. “I think all leaders differ from one another, if we can sit in the meeting and be mature, don’t shout at other people and keep collected then there won’t be problems” says de Kock.
Letsoara and de Kock both state that the cause of the conflict was indeed the topics of intervarsity and the code of conduct. However, Letsoara says that two weeks before the meeting he gave all the SRC members copies of the code of conduct to read, with a declaration form attached to be signed. According to Letsoara, de Kock had a problem with the code of conduct so he told her to come to him and talk about it logically, but she never came. “In the meeting, I asked Miss de Kock if she still has a problem with the code of conduct because I wanted to open the matter for discussion but to my amazement, Miss de Kock had nothing to say. She just rose out issues out of excitement such as the internal procedures that she believes I didn’t follow as if she knows what the internal procedures are, so I found her problems petty” says Letsoara.
Letsoara explained to de Kock that he did follow procedure and showed the code of conduct to the Dean of Students Affairs: Rudi Buys, who at the time was still working for iGUBU, and, after finding the code of conduct to be sound, he endorsed it. Letsoara also took the code of conduct to the SRC of Legal and Constitutional Affairs: Stander de Jager. De Jager and Letsoara worked together on the code of conduct whereby he also added something on it.”As we were arguing about the code of conduct, I started getting irritated and spoke my mind. I told them that I am not going to discuss this any further and want the declaration forms signed and submitted. I don’t know what happened, they walked out. Chrisna took her bag and all her other four puppets walked out of the meeting”.
Racism and politics seem to be the contributing factors in the tension within the SRC members after a few interviews with some of the SRC members. Buys says that they (both him and the Rector Prof. Jonathan Jansen) are well aware of the way the political parties are leading the student body and are not happy with it. “At the moment, the way the political parties are leading the student parliament seems to be creating more division than unity among students and we have a problem with that. But we will engage and work together with the student parliament and the SRC in finding answers to those challenges”.
The tension in the SRC raises questions about the leadership and whether the students still have faith in the president. SRC Secretary: Leandre le Roux, one of the SRC members that walked out of the meeting, says “I think it’s our leader’s responsibility to work on his attitude. It is his responsibility to stand against politics and be able to keep the SRC together because he is our leader and we have to follow him. But how are we supposed to follow him if he is acting the way that he does?”
When the SRC President Moses Masitha was asked about his plans, in concern with the loss of faith in his leadership, his response was “I think my people are losing faith in themselves, I think the SRC has divided itself into the black and white SRC. Even if we didn’t have politics, there will still be a black and white issue. For me, it’s the people that are not willing to compromise. I won’t encourage the removal of political parties as it’s unfortunate that SASCO wins the election and now they want politics removed.”
By Precious Staat |