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

[(Anonymous)]

"The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those less suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, ch.28

[epigramme.livejournal.com]

haha well re: "getting themselves made president", besides the nomination website I didn't do a single thing to campaign. adam is the one who put up colour posters everywhere and bought free pizzas for everyone etc. etc.

and it wasn't like we were the only "party", the other candidates websites said "vote for adam, vote for sam, vote for mervin, blah blah".

also keep in mind that the very first thing adam did (before I had done anything) was to release a press release saying how bad I would be as president etc. everything that happened afterwards was in response to that (and, was actually documented, not just random "rupert would be bad for a lot of reasons but I'm not going to elaborate" flames)

ps. jen, i did ask you what position you/other people in sesoc wanted!

[epigramme.livejournal.com]

pps. would love to know how my 'campaign' was dishonest

[erratio.livejournal.com]

and i would still refuse to answer on the basis that it reeks of partisanship. Leaving a position open for randoms versus leaving a position open for someone you know are two very different things. At worstyou would get a deadweight in the open positions but since you guys work well together and so forth it wouldn't be too hard to work around. Heck, most societies work with only half their exec active.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

syphoning resources. I have too high an opinion of your intelligence to believe it was anything other than deliberate misrepresentation

[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

[epigramme.livejournal.com]

obviously the comments were made in jest but I thought there was an element of truth in them, and a fundamental lack of respect for compsoc/sesoc. at any rate, they were only up for a few hours in an election that lasted a week so I don't see how you can call our campaign "completely dishonest" based on that

[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.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

If you read my post carefully you'll notice I wasn't calling your entire campaign completely dishonest.

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.

The only group that will cheerfully admit they hate you is Revue as a whole. I hate the way that Revue is always portrayed as this monolithic entity with only one opinion on everything but that's a rant for a different day.

And comments made on a private mailing list are very different in nature to a public website which people are directed to as part of a campaign. On .social EVERYTHING is blatantly disrespected, even revue.
If you thought there was an element of truth in the quotes you used out of context maybe you should have said something to that effect rather than hype it up to REVUE IS THE ANTICHRIST LOLZ. And as for being made in jest, your comments are almost always missing any of the usual markers to indicate that the speaker isn't serious.

PS: Contrary to what you appear to believe not everyone is out to get you.

[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.

[epigramme.livejournal.com]

The only group that will cheerfully admit they hate you is Revue as a whole. I hate the way that Revue is always portrayed as this monolithic entity

isn't that how you just portrayed them?

[axl12.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read Tharunka?
The Student Guild while I was there was completely
overtaken by ultra left-wingers. Not good

[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

[acute-angle.livejournal.com]

Forget about Tharunka. It's pretty much degraded now to tabloid trash. You'd be lucky to find one article which isn't someone making a mockery of a stereotype or a person they don't even know.

[axl12.livejournal.com]

well it was a tabloid trash back then too :)

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Well, put it this way: there's nothing quite like a common enemy to make individuals band together. On most issues revue isn't nearly as monolithic and faceless as people seem to think, but on the subject of your campaign I think Dan was the only revuer who wasn't howling for your blood on .social (I don't consider myself a revuer btw)

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Instead of this whole post I think I could have summarised by saying: politics simultaneously depresses me and pisses me off. It's a massive waste of time and energy.

[munchingmoo.livejournal.com]

who are you saying has a fundamental lack of respect for compsoc/sesoc? if it is yourself you are referring to then i am worried about the future of csesoc. if it "cse revue" that you are talking about i am completely flabbergasted that you could say that. there are a lot of people in that society that are involved in many aspects of volunteering in the school of cse and have been doing so since they started university.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

I second this point

[epigramme.livejournal.com]

yep, i agree with you which is why i updated the source-of-all-evil-rupert-must-die campaign page

[(Anonymous)]

I second that thought.

As a good friend of mine once said, "politics" comes from the Greek "poly", meaning "many", and "tics", meaning "small biting parasites".