Prof Rungano Zvobgo
… As 160 vote out of expected 1100
Tinodaishe Rukuni
MASHAVA – Great Zimbabwe University (GZU)’s most awaited Student Executive Council (SEC) elections became a farce last Sunday after the Vice Chancellor, Professor Rungano Zvobgo invalidated the elections and rescheduled them to next semester following a chaotic and inconclusive voting process.
This comes a month after the bid to replace the old SEC that was dissolved in August had to be postponed following a court ruling in favour of the Zimbabwe National Student Union (ZINASU) to stop the election.
At Mashava campus, voting started around 17: 00 pm but everything was halted 30 minutes later after the process ran short of ballot papers.
This was after only 24 students had cast their votes.
Voting was resumed at 22:00 pm but only 160 students managed to vote out of expected 1100 voters.
Addressing candidates and students at Mashava campus, professor Zvobgo said the election had to be rescheduled for early next semester as candidates had argued that the voting process was not properly done.
“The election has been nullified according to what you want and another date for fresh elections will be set again for next semester. You cannot announce results when the voting process has not been completed, we have exams that are supposed to start tomorrow and they cannot be affected by this,” said Zvobgo.
However, some students blamed the University for deliberately botching the voting exercise to please powerful political interests who feared their proxies were going to lose.
“The elections were supposed to be held on the last Thursday of the month but were postponed to Friday after candidates refused to use black and white ballot papers. Some candidates’ faces were appearing against wrong names. We demand that proper things and procedures be done and followed,” said one voting agent.news
