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Harare Polytechnic College encroaches on students' right to representation
Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) (Mugwadi)
May 20, 2010

On Friday the 14th of May 2010 the Harare Polytechnic College administration issued a notice stating that the college will have its first Student Representative Council (SRC) elections in six years. The college authorities promptly went on to set that same Friday as the day for nominations. The nominations opened for less than two hours and had a number of conditions one had to meet in order to appease the court.

These conditions included that candidates:

• must have fully paid their tuition fees
• submit all their tuition fees receipts since enrolment
• must be between the age of eighteen and twenty
• a nomination fee of US$35
• copies of national and college identity cards
• clearance from the heard of department
• candidates must be staying in the halls of residence
• one must not have any police record

It is obvious that these stern conditions were designed to curtail bonafide student leaders from participating in this election. The nominations opened for a very brief and restrictive period such that most candidates including non ZINASU candidates failed to submit their nomination papers, it was even short such that students could not even go back home to collect some of its dictates.

The majority of students activist who have been fierce critiques of the cadetship scheme and were barred from accessing the cadetship forms, hence have not paid fully their tuition fees were automatically barred from the process. The issue of fees alone is discriminatory as the majority of students across the country are failing to meet these education denying fees structures. It has never happened in the history of the student movement that an age limit of twenty years governs nomination but it can only be a formidable tool to remove competent personalities from the elections.

It is so hypocritical that a student failing to raise enough to pay his or her fees be expected to raise a nomination fee of US$35.Clearance from a head of department who is part of this vile and oppressive plot is tantamount to eliminating vibrant student leaders for they will not be cleared. The history of heads of departments at Harare polytechnic College is that they are an extension of the administration's oppressive tendencies who equally selects those who qualify for residence. Accommodation at the college is viewed as a privilege sanctioned by the Dean of students with the approval of the head of department, hence only their prefects are favoured to participate in this election.

Under intense pressure from ZINASU the Raza administration had finally agreed to have the elections, but just like our national elections under the notorious AIPPA and POSA,Harare polytechnic students can never achieve and enjoy representation when the college authorities manipulates the election process the way they have plotted. For long the students of Harare Polytechnic College have cried for representation but the cries fell on Steven Raza's deaf ears whose corrupt and incompetent administration concealed its activities under a dark veil of repression. ZINASU is gravely concerned that Raza intends to impose a prefect type of SRC whose mandate is not to represent the students but the cadaverous administration. It is a gimmick designed to appease students with some semblance of representation, yet perpetuating naked repression. In 2007 Raza did the same thing and imposed upon the students a ZANU-PF youth who was not even a student by then.

As a Union we have already started mobilising students at Harare Polytechnic to resist Raza's kisses of the enemy with preparations of a student driven and student centred SRC elections advancing. We warn Raza to halt his circus and respect the students' right to representation. Time has come for this corrupt iron man to realise that the right to representation is not a favour sanctioned by him as a privilege but a constitutional dictate to be followed.

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