You can’t really grasp what’s happening at the University of Fort Hare right now if you see the protest as just about maintenance issues, NSFAS, accommodation, or unpaid student allowances. Those matter, but they’re not the spark that set off this round of protest. The real heart of it is the Student Governance Constitution (SGC) and what it means for student democracy. It comes down to a pretty basic question: Who gets to make the rules for student governance at Fort Hare? The students themselves, or the university administration?
The Struggle That Still Isn’t Over: 2025
To see why this is blowing up again, you have to roll back to October and November 2025. The protests back then were fired up by a bunch of demands: holding SRC elections, re-forming the Institutional Student Parliament (ISP), fixing student funding, infrastructure, accommodation, and general service-delivery failures. But at the core, students were fighting for a say in their own governance. Students didn’t just accept the creation of an interim SRC while the SGC was being changed. They pushed back because they didn’t want an unelected group setting the rules for student democracy.
Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Higher Education eventually stepped in. They saw the mess; no SRC elections, an interim SRC without a proper mandate, and called it out as part of the crisis. The Committee told the university to review the SGC with real student input, and to make SRC elections transparent. So what’s happening with the SGC now? It’s not a new problem. It’s the same fight from 2025, still unresolved.
From Protest to Fixing the Institution
Yeah, the violence and destruction that happened in October was wrong. Breaking down campus buildings hurts students most, and everyone around Fort Hare. But just condemning the destruction misses the point. If you ignore the reasons people are angry, the crisis won’t go away. That’s why the Portfolio Committee and DHET got involved. Fort Hare was in an institutional crisis. They met with Council, management, students, and labor and called for a plan to actually rebuild the university.
Fixing things isn’t just about patching up buildings; it’s about fixing governance, rebuilding trust, and making sure students, workers, management, and Council can operate together in structures people respect.
Council and the Crisis That Still Lingers
During the 2025 crisis, Ms Kuselwa Marala was the Interim Chair of Council, and Prof Judith Favish was Interim Deputy Chair. They were part of university leadership during the interventions. Later, they left those temporary posts. Dr Siyanda Makaula took over as Council Chair, and Dr Yoliswa Mancotywa followed as Deputy. Marala and Favish stayed on the Council, just not at the helm. This isn’t just about who’s in charge. The leadership shifted around, but a lot of the reasons for the crisis in 2025 are still there.
SGC Is at the Center of Everything
You can’t just talk about the SGC in isolation from everything else students are dealing with. Lots of first-time and returning students are still fighting to get funding sorted out. NSFAS and GAP investigations only add more confusion. Accommodation is still a headache, infrastructure’s failing, and basic maintenance keeps being delayed on both campuses. These are real, material problems.
If you don’t have funding, you might not be able to register, eat, travel, or keep your room. If your residence is falling apart, studying isn’t easy. And without real student representation, it’s hard to push the university to sort these problems out. Democracy and service delivery are linked. The SGC is about the political framework that lets students actually organize and fight for better living and studying conditions.
Seeing the Larger Picture
Historical materialism helps you realize these issues are all tied together, they’re not just random complaints. Fort Hare serves a lot of working-class and poor students who need public education, financial aid, and decent accommodation. The university, meanwhile, has its own bureaucracy, limited resources, and its own interests. Those interests don’t always line up with what students need. And that’s where the struggle comes in.
The right response isn’t pointless bureaucracy or just tearing things down. Students should be militant—but organized. Radical, but strategic. Ready to fight but careful to protect the school and resources they rely on.
SASCO and YBMM
This is why you also have to look at what SASCO and YBMM are doing in East London. The issue isn’t about whether every member is “reactionary.” The real question is what are these organizations actually doing? If they block real student action for democratic governance without coming up with a solid alternative for fixing the SGC, funding, infrastructure, and accommodation, then they end up just preserving the status quo. That’s what reactionary politics looks like. Students need to beat that through political education, organizing, and democratic action. Not through personal attacks.
The Haniist-Bikoist Mission
EFF Youth Command? Fort Hare ought to be a center for political education. Students should dig into what the SGC, SRC, ISP, Council, NSFAS, budgets, and decision-making at the university actually mean. This is where Scientific Socialism with Afrocentric Characteristics — Haniism-Bikoism — steps in. Marxism brings in historical materialism and class analysis. Leninism steers organization and discipline. Trotsky helps you link the immediate struggles to transforming the system. Haniism; after Chris Hani; focuses on mass politics, working-class unity, and socialism in a South African context. Bikoism adds African pride, awareness, and liberation. The aim? Turn spontaneous anger into real, organized political action.
From Protest to Real Power
The biggest lesson from October 2025 is that protest on its own isn’t enough. Right now, the fight needs to push for a truly democratic SGC, real SRC elections, a working ISP, solutions for student funding, fair GAP investigations, solid NSFAS administration, reliable infrastructure, livable residences, and institutional accountability.
And, sure, those responsible for the violence must answer for it. What happened during the 2025 chaos has to be investigated based on evidence not hearsay. Fort Hare needs more than patched-up walls; it needs a democratic rebuild. The SGC isn’t just a bureaucratic paper; it’s about who has power. So it’s on revolutionary students to understand, organize, teach, mobilize, and win. That’s how Fort Hare’s unfinished fight in 2025 can become a real movement to remake the university as a center for true student democracy.
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