Polokwane - The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the SA Students' Congress (Sacso) each won eight seats in the University of Limpopo student representative council elections.
Now each will try to form a coalition with the Students' Christian Organisation (SCO), which won one seat, to gain power to determine how the SRC portfolios will be decided.
The elections resumed on Monday following disruptions in the first round of voting last Thursday.
The university said then that the elections were stopped because of "acts of criminality and violence".
"Security at the polling stations has been beefed up with immediate effect until the entire process is concluded," vice chancellor Professor Mahlo Mokgalong said last week.
"We call on all students to... exercise electoral maturity throughout this process."
Voting on Monday was peaceful.
Last year the EFF won the elections at the university's Turfloop campus.
EFF already in talks with SCO
The party said on Tuesday that it is still "the leading student organisation in terms of the popular will of the students".
"This year's outcome resulted in the EFF attaining eight seats in the SRC, the same as Sasco, and the SCO getting only one," EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said in a statement.
"Thus, to constitute the SRC portfolio allocations, the SCO will be the deciding vote and the EFF is already in talks to make sure that the students' number one choice is indeed affirmed in how SRC portfolios will be decided."
Sasco's presidential candidate Mamogobo Nakedi told News24 that internal squabbles and division among the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA), a lack of funds and factionalism led Sasco to lose to the EFF in the last elections.
Nakedi said now the SCO will have to decide with which organisation it will form a coalition.
"They hold the power,” said Nakedi.
“Previously, we comrades from PYA were not united, we had internal battles which caused us the election [last year]... it was dividing students between Sasco and the ANC Youth League,” he said.