RUTV 3

Rhodes University 3rd year student Phakamani Lisa is COPING just fine. With the upcoming South African national elections on the 22nd of April 2009, she knows exactly where her ballot is going to go- for ANC breakaway party, COPE. With student apathy a major concern, Phakamani provides a refreshing perspective as to why she has placed her hope in COPE.

Nonceba Mhlawuli, secretary of the ANCYL at Rhodes University, gives her opinion on the upcoming elections. According to her, Cope is no better than the ANC as it is lead by ex-ANC members – “what makes them better now?” – and Cope member have abandoned the legacy of the ANC. She also feels Malema is a bad role model for the youth of South Africa, but, in her eyes, he retains his status as a good leader of the ANCYL.

ROAR president Kathryn McConnachie tells us how animal rights fit into the current elections.

Grethe Koen finds out why animal rights have been so sorely neglected in these electoral debates as well as the common indifference towards animal rights by many South Africans.

The story idea came about after a fellow journalist interviewed Rhodes COPE representative, Loyiso Phantshwa, after the COPE launch on Rhodes campus. During the interview Phantshwa revealed that he was a member of SASCO. We thought this would be a great story considering SASCO has always been affiliated with the ANC and recently on the Butterworth campus, a violent riot broke out between SASCO and COPE because SASCO was called to reject any COPE members. Had COPE infiltrated SASCO Rhodes?  Would SASCO split?

We set up an interview with Rhodes SASCO president Xanti Njozela, for the following morning, however, we needed confirmation and we needed numbers of how many SASCO members were now aligned with COPE before the interview. I then conducted a telephonic interview with Phantshwa to get confirmation of his membership and how many other COPE affiliates were members of SASCO. He confirmed that he was a member though was not active, also confirming around fifty COPE members were part of SASCO.

We conducted the interview with Njozela the following morning. He could neither confirm nor deny the number of COPE members, but maintained there was no potential split. Most of what he said was contrary to Phantshwa’s statements. We knew we had to set up an interview with him to reveal the contradiction and represent the very powerful things he had said over the phone. Due to the time limit of 90secs we really had to focus the insert and stick to the infiltration of COPE in SASCO. So unfortunately we had to leave out of some very controversial accusations made by Phantshwa regarding ANC ideology within SASCO discourse as well as Njozela’s initial denial of bowing to ANC policyand then his eventual defence of SASCO’s support for the ANC.

Our reporter, Camalita Naicker, talks to Rhodes SASCO President Xanti and COPE Representative on campus, Loyiso Phantshwa about COPE members in SASCO and the possible Death of SASCO.

We speak to  a COPE  Youth Wing Rep at Rhodes University Campus to find out what what are their issues on these coming elections.