By Emma Giles
The Student Court of Stellenbosch University unanimously overruled the Student Electoral Commission’s (SEC) decision to disqualify Ben Anderson as a member of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC). Anderson received the top number of votes (2 703) in the SRC election that took place from 22 to 29 August.
On 2 September, an anonymous complaint was lodged to the SEC against Anderson. The complaint accused Anderson of “endorsing candidates and promoting the values of DASO as opposed to those of the SRC”. Following the complaint, the SEC disqualified Anderson as an elected member of the 2025/2026 SRC on 5 September. Anderson appealed this decision through the Student Court. On 21 November, the Student Court found the disqualification to be invalid.
The details of the case are outlined in the official judgement of Anderson v Students’ Representative Council and Others 21/11/25. The judgement document can be accessed by emailing studentcourt@sun.ac.za.
The Applicant was Anderson. The first and second Respondents were the SRC and the SEC, respectively. The SEC is responsible for overseeing the election process. The third Respondent was Lihle Baleka, who served as a Portfolio Manager in the 2024/2025 SRC. In the 2025 election, Baleka came in at the 10th position with 1 050 votes. The SRC has nine generally elected members.
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Investigation
The Student Court’s judgement outlined the nature of the complaint, the conduct of the SEC, the details of what the Applicant deemed as an unfair disqualification, and the Student Court’s reasoning. According to the judgement, the complaint was “later revealed to have been lodged by the third Respondent who, in the instance of the Applicant’s disqualification, was the ninth generally elected SRC member”.
The third Respondent, Baleka, was not included in the initial announcement of the new SRC on 1 September. The SEC announced Baleka as a generally elected member on 8 September on the matieselections Instagram account. However, he was not included in the interim SRC announced by an official newsletter from the Division for Student Affairs (DSAf) sent to students on 19 September, following the disqualification of Anderson. No communication regarding Anderson’s disqualification has been posted on the SEC’s Instagram account to date (10 December).
After an investigation of the assertions in the complaint, the SEC informed Anderson on 4 September that he was “in breach of the rules regarding the endorsement of fellow candidates, responsibility for campaign platform content, and improper caucus conduct”.
This finding was based on the content of an article Anderson submitted to the SEC with his manifesto on 1 August that contained a detailed explanation of his plans to “rebuild [the] SRC”. The article was included in Anderson’s manifesto with a hyperlink to an external online platform called Substack.
Following the complaint, the SEC requested that Anderson remove his Substack article. Anderson did not comply as “to his view, the directives [from the SEC] were unlawful, irrational, and disproportionate to the alleged non-compliance”, as stated in the judgement. As a result, on 5 September, Anderson was disqualified from the SRC by the SEC.
Anderson appealed the SEC’s decision by bringing the matter to the Student Court. After receiving affidavits from both the Applicant and the SEC, the Student Court sided in Anderson’s favour.
Anderson shared an announcement on his Instagram account on 23 November stating, “This judgement struck down the SEC’s unconstitutional disqualification of me, and set the record straight on the SEC’s negligence and misinterpretation of the election rules during the 2025 elections.” He continued, “It is disappointing that after I ran a campaign criticising those in power in our leadership structures, those same structures attempted to disqualify me.” He further states that the “SEC needs urgent reform” and highlighted poor communication to students and the continued disruption to work of the SRC.
Since the ruling, the third Respondent has submitted an appeal document to the Student Court. Simiso Langa, the interim Chairperson of the 2025/2026 SRC, confirmed that the Student Court and Dean of Law have decided to accept the appeal and will only be reviewing the appeal next year. Until then, the interim SRC will continue as the functional SRC, excluding Anderson.
To date, 10 December, the Student Court has not directly informed Anderson of this decision and the SRC, SEC and Student Court have yet to provide any public communication regarding this outcome.
DASO affiliation
In the complaint, Anderson was accused of “promoting the values of DASO as opposed to those of the SRC” following the events of a SRC election caucus that took place on 26 August at Heemsteede Residence. Another candidate, Johan Weideman, was asked by a member of the audience about his impartiality due to his known affiliation with the Democratic Alliance Student Organisation (DASO). Anderson requested to answer too. The SEC permitted him to respond, to which he referred to himself as “a proud DASO member”.
As stated in the judgement, there is “no explicit prohibition on candidates to not be part of a political party”. Although a candidate may not accept endorsement or run on behalf of a political party, they are allowed to associate with a political party. Anderson’s response during the caucus was described as “honest” and not “an infringement of any rule”, according to the judgement.
Concern of endorsement
On 4 August, the SEC acknowledged receipt of Anderson’s manifesto and hyperlinked Substack article. Between 11 and 15 August the SEC engaged in various conversations with Anderson. The SEC raised concerns about the nature of the Substack article as a potential “mass communication [tool]”. At this stage, the content of the Substack article itself was not in question by the SEC.
According to the Student Court’s judgement, the concern of endorsement was based on the SEC’s interpretation of Rule 3(8) in the Election Rules 2025 that states that candidates should “refrain from any attempt at misusing power or resorting to privileges or influence or using any form of coercion intended to persuade someone to vote for any candidate”.
In his Substack article, Anderson endorsed Weideman. Later, on 19 August, Anderson edited the article further to endorse Joshua Donald, in a paragraph towards the end of the Substack article. Weideman got 1 247 votes in the SRC election and came in at the fourth position. Donald was not elected as a SRC member.
However, the Student Court found that Rule 3(8) does not directly inhibit candidate-candidate endorsement but rather by students or “third parties who have platforms that may influence voter behaviour”. Through consideration of “context, purpose, and language” of the rule, the Student Court found the SEC’s interpretation of Rule 3(8) to be invalid.
Conduct of the SEC
The Student Court emphasised that the Substack article was in fact approved by the SEC. However, on 14 August, the SEC admitted to Anderson that they had not properly read the entire article. According to the SEC, as stated in the judgement, this was due to “operational and administrative strain”. The judgement labelled this behaviour as “disingenuous, and possibly negligent”.
The Student Court found the sanction imposed on Anderson by the SEC, namely, to remove the entire Substack article, to be “disproportionate”. The Student Court also found the timing of the sanction to be “irrational” as the SEC only notified the Applicant of the complaint a day before the election of the SRC executive committee originally scheduled to take place on 5 September.
Political discourse
The Student Court’s judgement highlighted that Anderson’s Substack article contained direct criticism of the current and previous SRC bodies and emphasised that this could be the reason for Anderson receiving a majority vote. The judgement states that this “serves as a valuable and essential part of political discourse, not only at a university level, but at a national level”.
Developing story
Die Matie will report on further developments regarding the appeal by the third Respondent and Anderson’s potential reinstatement into the SRC as information becomes available.
