The youth will decide

By Julius Mashifane

Last week I woke up to surprising news. Well not so surprising considering the recent turn of events in our political landscape. I came across several posts on social media, congratulating the EFF Student Command on the white wash victory at the Venda University of Technology (VUT) SRC polls. A victory for the EFFSC was not surprising, what surprised me was that they won all seats in the student’s council. 

When the ANC couldn’t win local elections on the 3rd of August last year, they said that was a wakeup call, when masses marched to the union buildings under the banner of EFF on the 2nd of November they said that was a wakeup call, when the public started to “boo” ANC leaders including their president who happens to be state president they said that was another wakeup call. I wonder how many wakeup calls you must get before one wakes up. This is the biggest wakeup call and if the elephant fails to wake up now we should declare it dead.

Currently the EFFSC is in charge of the SRC of many institutions of higher learning. Remember that this is where intellectuals are produced. The society is steadily becoming more learned and more conscious of the political processes and more fed-up of corruption. South Africa’s population is largely composed of youth which means the future leadership of this country is in their votes. I think one of the reasoning we saw a decline of ANC votes, leading to it losing some metros was due to the increased number of young people that came out to vote. For me it was the first time seeing such hype around local elections, even party spending on campaigns was on another level.

We are moving towards a socialist society, leaders of tomorrow are already leaders of today and we should take our cue from that. Leaders don’t just emerge, the apartheid was defeated by the youth of that time mostly emerged from institutions of higher learning just like we see it happen today. I hear that during campaigns at VUT the ANCYL was giving away T-shirts and KFC meals, yet failed to secure a single seat in the student council.

 The days of giving people palliative treatment and not real solutions to their problems or at least showing commitment to the course are over. It’s time to show up or shape out. The youth need jobs and money to start businesses or pay their studies. Should they in their majority take their frustrations to the polls, the ANC will be history. The youth hold the deciding power, the future of our state is in their hands.