This comes a few weeks after the Fees Must Fall protest at the campus which resulted in the arrests of 25 students. The EFF Student Command (EFFSC) and the ANC aligned Student Formation South African Student Congress Organisation (SASCO) and independent candidates will square off during the race. 

Seven candidates from each EFFSC and SASCO will take on three independent candidates. The results are expected to be released later in the evening - at around 21:00 on Friday. The current SRC deputy president from SASCO, Kamohelo Seleka, is amongst the nominees and is standing to be elected as the president of the SRC and EFFSC’ Swanti Jerry Thoka is also contesting for the same position.

Students earlier protested on the campus against financial exclusion and registration difficulties. But later the university and SRC agreed that students who were not allowed to register due to historical debt will be allowed to do so and they had also agreed to open both Qwaqwa and Bloemfontein campuses to allow walk-ins for registration. The university had previously said that students who owed more than R20 000 were not allowed to register. 

This then infuriated students and called for the shutdown of the university and during the protest, at least 25 students from EFFSC and SASCO were arrested by the police at the Bloemfontein Campus. The students were then later charged for public violence, amongst others, but they were all released on warning without paying any cost for bail. During the violence, students had alleged that the university had hired private security guards to brutalise them. But the university refuted the claims and called for investigations into the acts of violence at the university.

OFM News