uni politics

[erratio]

I hate politics. Really I do.

In an ideal world the people voted in would be the best for the job, period. And all decisions within the elected body would be decided by the equivalent of a conscience vote, ie everyone votes what they think is the best choice, none of this partisan crap.

Now I understand why this isn't the case for large-scale politics. No wait, that's a lie. I read at one point about why the partisanship in politics but the knowledge seems to have seeped out my ears in the meantime. I used to understand why large-scale politics doesn't function like this.

There's been a few elections at uni within the last month that I've been somewhat involved in. In one, one of the candidates put together a party while all the other candidates ran independently. There was open animosity between the leader of the party and most of the other candidates. The results of the election involved the entire party being elected. Is this a good thing? I don't think so. For one, this election saw much more campaigning (including smear campaigns) than usually goes on in student politics, and I don't think it's a good thing that this year's election might become the precedent for future years and lead to bitter rivalries between candidates. Up until this point I would have said that everyone in my faculty gets on fairly well. Well not anymore.. the leader of the group seems to be the George Bush of CSE politics in that everyone either loves him or hates him, with very few fence-sitters. It doesn't help that he ran a completely dishonest smear campaign against one of the groups who don't mind admitting they hate him. Yay for divisiveness. The other point about the entire party getting in is that by running a platform that filled every position they exclude the society from receiving any new blood. It's all very well that they're all good friends with eachother and so forth but it seems like they would have benefited more by deliberately leaving a couple of positions open for other people.

Then there's the other election, for a society made up of people who are all nice and friendly but with a whole lot of politicking going on under the surface. I know several people who have sent around emails or expressed out loud their hopes to be appointed to position X by the new exec next year, and people running for positions in the exec who have talked to as many voters as possible to try to influence their voting. Now this society is quite a large one which has a large operating budget every year, so it makes sense that this is a big deal and it's important to the people who care that the society be run with the 'right' people. But wherefore trying to make people's minds up for them? Talking about how a certain vote is going to be people S versus people T, and implying the existence of bloc voting? Sending emails to candidates for a position (not even voted in yet, just the candidates) to make sure you're the first to express interest in a certain position? That's just not cool.

I don't know precisely where I'm going with this; only it seems a shame that these societies, which both started out as a bunch of students just trying to help other students out and have a good time in the process have turned into this painful morass of hidden meanings and partisanship. Uni politics aren't supposed to be this deadly serious thing where you can make friends and enemies for life. Save that for the real world, if you care so much. I'm kinda glad I'm not part of either society at the moment, I'm too blunt and honest for all this politicking. Maybe I'll apply again next year and hope it's all settled down a bit by then. In the meantime, I want my innocence back :(

Comments

[epigramme.livejournal.com]

not sure what your point is, but we didn't have enough people to fill every position and could easily have rearranged nominations if you had made it clear what you were interested in. this has nothing to do with friendship but just the fact that I think sesoc did a pretty decent job last year.

as it stands you didn't even make a nomination page so i don't see how you can blame your loss on "partisanship" or claim that the "best for the job" wasn't elected

[erratio.livejournal.com]

I'm amused at how you assume that my post is a result of me being bitter at not being elected. Mostly all I feel is a sense of relief. There is some disappointment there yes but I was speaking in general terms about electing the best people as opposed to "person X works well with person Y and I think person X would do a good job so I'll vote person Y". I never claimed that I was the best person for the job or that I deserved to be elected over Alex.

re: your first point though, it's not up to you to decide who is allowed to get elected. My first reaction to your offer was "oh how generous of you to allow us to run unopposed [/sarcasm]". I would much rather lose on my own terms than feel as if I was elected thanks to being the only person running because of all the backstage manouvering. I care about CSE and I really do want to see the best people for the job doing it, and to me that means competition should be encouraged.

[epigramme.livejournal.com]

i have no idea whether you would have been the only person running, but i would have supported you.

as it stands, this was a *very* close election (I lost Publicity and won CASOC, with a difference of 4 votes between them).

if you had put any effort in (you know, to compete), you might have been able to win.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

yeh, stupid mistake on my part. *shrug* If I run again next year I'll have to think of something I suppose