By Emma Olivier
The voter turnout for the 2026 Students’ Representative Council (SRC) elections is only 12,4% – 4 153 out of 33 497 eligible voters according to a presentation during the announcement of the new SRC on 31 July. With this small portion of students participating in student democracy, Die Matie took a look at the relationship between the paper and SRC exposure and student interest.
The media’s freedom “provides for independent scrutiny of the forces that shape society, and is essential to realising the promise of democracy”, according to the South African Press Code, implemented in 2022. The SRC is one of these forces.
How Die Matie reported on the SRC
Before the democratic South Africa, Die Matie wrote and published under conditions of racial segregation, censorship and political instability. For example, on 10 October 1941, Die Matie wrote in support of “the ANS [Afrikaanse Nasionale Studentebond] idea” of segregation in universities.
In an editorial letter on 13 October 1950, the same year of the Group Areas Act’s implementation, Die Matie placed pressure on the SRC to “take a standpoint regarding mixed universities.”
On 29 March 1968, Die Matie reported that the University of Natal’s SRC and student newspaper Dome were dissolved “because of a series of clashes between the previous Student Council and the authorities”, which showed the challenges of student press in South Africa during apartheid.
Die Matie and elections
Die Matie carries the joint responsibility of keeping influential structures at Stellenbosch University (SU), and the quality of its leadership, visible and accountable. For decades, Die Matie has been a platform where students could make their voices heard on the topic.
For example, Jan Swanepoel, a Die Matie reader, wrote a letter to Die Matie in 1999, sharing his opinion that student attitudes toward the SRC may have fed into a perceived lack of efficiency. He wrote that the SRC seemed as if they only took up their positions for their own benefit. However, he emphasised the authority of the SRC and said that the SRC needed students’ support to work effectively. His letter also mentioned the low voter turnout (5 000 out of 16 000 eligible voters).
In an editorial letter appearing in Die Matie on 5 August 1960, one G.D.P. disapproved of students that did not use their right to vote: “Take it away then they cry, give it then they do not use it!”
Anna-Retha Kriel, a former journalist for Die Matie, reported on 15 September 1994 that the percentage of SRC election voters was 40,16%, the “highest in years”. In that article, the previous SRC Chairperson, Louis du Preez, attributed this “high” number to publicity in Die Matie, referring to an editorial commentary from 25 August the previous week, titled “Stop the SRC”, in which the SRC is criticised as “a powerless institution”.
On 2 September 1998, Die Matie reported that the appointment of Wynoma Michaels, the SRC’s first Chairperson of colour, was “the start of a new era in campus politics”.
On 4 August 1999, Die Matie attributed the few SRC nominations to apathetic students, poor marketing from the SRC and lack of collaboration with Die Matie: “The closing date for nominations should have been after, not before, the semester’s first edition of Die Matie.”
On 4 September 2002, Die Matie quoted the Election Convenor at SU, Drini Kotzé, regarding the voter count of 28%: “We spread 8 000 copies of Die Matie’s election edition. People could have voted on WebCT for two days and at the voting stations for two days. What more must you do?”
On 18 August 2004, Die Matie reported about a case that was taken up by Student Court: too few students voted in 2003, so in 2004, a R3000 gift voucher was promised to the residence or CSC whence the most votes came. Furthermore, each vote also counted as an entry for a lucky draw worth R500. The case was eventually declared not unconstitutional, yet it did indicate voter apathy as a “very current issue”.
In 2025, only 5 075 out of 33 016 students cast their votes. This was 15,3% of the student body and yet the “highest voter turnout in 14 years” at SU according to Sibabalwe Manyifolo, Students’ Electoral Commission (SEC) chairperson and Chief Electoral Officer in 2025 in an article by Kuhle Tshabalala for Stellenbosch Media Forum on 5 September 2025.
Editorial letters, surveys and SRC election editions of Die Matie suggest that there was once a closer bond between the paper and the SRC, with Die Matie as a communication medium between leaders and the larger student community. Die Matie also published mid-year evaluations of each SRC member. These evaluations were compiled by a panel that included House Committee (HC) and SRC subcommittee members. In 2002 and 2003 each SRC member received a rating from A to D with observations on the quality of their work.
According to the Student Constitution, revised in 2021, “the Electoral Commission must inform all students through the publication of an election edition of Die Matie, electronic marketing, posters, and in any other way,” of the election’s necessary details. In recent years this communication from the Electoral Commission has not taken place via Die Matie, but rather through electronic communication from the Electoral Commission itself on social media.
Pressure on student leadership
It seems that Die Matie regularly attended SRC meetings, as 1960s editions, for example, as well as various campus quotes from SRC meetings in the 1990s and 2000s show. While Die Matie interacted regularly with the SRC, the paper also had to place the SRC’s behaviour under a microscope.
By publishing a survey, “Do we need an SRC? Why?” on 18 August 1999, Die Matie placed pressure on the SRC to be more attuned to student issues. Answers indicated apathy, exasperation or lack of information among students. “No, because I have never seen them do anything for me,” said one. “Yes – there would be sense in it if more people knew what the point of the SRC is and what power they have,” said another.
On 9 May 2001, Loftus Marais, Die Matie journalist, reported on a “SRC feedback circus” held during the previous week in the Neelsie Student Centre where “only a handful of spectators showed up” according to the article. Hannelie Louw, SRC member for Cultural Activities in 2001, blamed the apathy among students on “the media’s negative portrayal of the SRC, bitterly naming Die Matie”.
Die Matie reported in April 2001 that the “SRC still has the same problems” of “student representation” being “unaddressed and precious energy wasted on resolving internal SRC conflict” which “seems to be the result of egos on the line”. An editorial commentary on 21 August 2002 asked, “Does the SRC still serve a purpose?”
As Helette Pieterse and Eugéne Henning, two past SRC members, said during an SRC meeting, according to the Campus Quotes of 1 August 2001, “SRC Survival Guide: Part of the fun of being on the SRC is stumbling around in the dark until you find out what you are doing wrong. Yes, or Die Matie will go just ahead and tell you!”
In an editorial letter from 8 April, Emma Giles, Editor-in-Chief of 2025/2026, called on student leaders to “engage with us as student media” and concluded: “We believe it is essential for the public to understand the role of the press in a democratic society”.
