ANC CONDEMNS EFF DISREGARD OF DEMOCRACY

Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Johannesburg 

The African National Congress (ANC) condemns, in the harshest possible terms, the incidence of violence that took place at the Tshwane University of Technology's (TUT) Pretoria West Campus earlier today. Today's activities follows similar anarchy, with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) again at the centre, at Wits University earlier this week. During that incident the victims of the EFF's lawlessness and hooliganism was a non-political body called Project W; today the EFF is once again involved in a fracas and they attack the students of the TUT. 

As many campuses hold elections for their Student Representative Councils (SRC), the continuing disruptions by the EFF are the clearest demonstration that this organization does not know nor does it hold democracy in high regard. They do not have the interests of the students at heart except as to use them as cannon fodders, marshalled with phrases such as "Fighters Attack", for the purposes of narrow political grandstanding.

The ANC calls on the management at universities to protect the right of students to participate in and elect Student Representative Councils of their choice. We further call on students to unite against this form of dictatorship which seeks to reverse the gains of students which were hard won through sweat and blood.

Statement issued by Zizi Kodwa, ANC national spokesperson, August 26 2015