alex.mullr.net/blog

UoY’s student union (YUSU) elections are all this week, so I thought I’d write up a quick post on where my votes are going. These are from the perspective of a generally uninterested-in-politics student. Nouse (the amazing campus newspaper) have a great page (alright, so I’m a little biased) page on all the elections candidates that you can have a peek at. Enjoy.

Re-reading this just after I wrote it, the most important thing for me is: be really visible and very loud, make your policies and yourself known to absolutely everybody who will look at you. Honestly, it doesn’t matter that much what you say; as long as one of your policies isn’t “cull kittens”, you’ll be fine.

President

This is a choice between four, and here’s my take on them. Grant Bradley is a decent candidate, and seems to have campaigned well, but is too unknown on campus to win the position of figurehead of YUSU. Bushby is too… “boring” for me. Alright, that’s mean; but I just don’t feel like he’s the person who should be at the centre of the student union. So the race is between Tom Langrish and Tim Ngwena. Both have great experience and nothing stands out from their policies, so it’s a pretty even choice between them. I’m not sure which way I’ll go yet.

Student Activities

I’ve seen none of these three at all on campus or online (by comparison, I’ve seen one person from at least all the other positions). Remembering that I’m voting from the point of view of a lazy student, I’ll probably put Rory Shanks top. Seeing as he’s been doing the job for a year with no major hiccups that I can tell.

Democracy & Services

Dave Sharp’s been campaigning pretty actively round Halifax college - and has been openly critical of the person whose position he’s gunning for. Lewis Bretts gets the prize for the most visible campaigner of everybody in this election (who could miss the giant wooden fruit and vedge stall, really). When it comes down to it, I think it’ll be Bretts top and Sharp second. I’ve heard nothing about Ed Durkin or George Papadofragakis, so they don’t mean much to me.

Academic Affairs, Welfare and York Sport

Academic Affairs doesn’t even need a section. Charlie Leyland’s going to get it, and rightly so. Re-electing people is so easy.

For Welfare, Ben Humphrys has been the most visible, so he’s going top of the list. A few people have said positive things about Pallas, so he’ll go second. And I have no idea who Jenny Coyle is.

And Emily Scott’s the most visible of the York Sport people, so again, she’ll be first. After that, I was impressed by Michael Leahy at some point last term, and I don’t know who the other two are.