Campaigners and candidates under Front Arch
The election campaigns for the 2011/12 Students’ Union Sabbatical Offices began in earnest last night as the strictly-enforced ban on early campaigning came to an end. Candidates rushed to get the choice poster slots while their campaign managers raced to get the jump on their opponents on Facebook.
Campaigners scrabble for poster slots
With just over a week until polling begins, there’s not much time for candidates to get students’ support. First years unacquainted with the annual ritual can expect an onslaught of friendly faces wearing colourful t-shirts and wielding professionally-designed flyers.
It was refreshing to see Aaron Heffernan’s campaign for President doing away with the standard t-shirt and slogan campaign, with his supporters instead playing the role of Secret Service agents to Heffernan’s Obama, a role he has played on the stage in the DU Players musical “Obama Mia” which toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last summer.
Each of the five races – President, Education, Welfare, Communications and Ents – is contested this year, with four candidates for Welfare Officer, three for President, and he-she head-to-heads in the other contests.
The race for Welfare seems to be the hottest of the five, with each of the four candidates boasting a different approach and, for most, a wealth of experience. Late applicant Russell Bryce looks to completely overhaul the Welfare Office, changing focus from mental and sexual health to more current issues such as providing help with emigration, while VDP veteran Louisa Miller aims to put her Social Work degree to good use. SU Executive Committee member Caroline Keating is running on the back of four years’ worth of activity in the SU and a desire to bring better services to off-campus students, while LGBT Soc Auditor Darren O’Gorman wants to lobby College authorities to protect and improve the University’s welfare services.
Louisa Miller (red scarf) and campaigners show off their t-shirts
The three-way for President has an unpredictable dynamic this year, with long-term SU activist Ryan Bartlett’s long-prepared campaign being assailed by the charismatic Heffernan’s “not-quite-a-joke campaign” and SU outsider Sebastien LeCocq. While Bartlett ticks all the boxes in terms of the traditional SU hobby-horses – improving library opening hours, fighting fees and a better Deal of the Week, LeCocq focuses on reforming the Students’ Union, diverting SU funding towards grants for students, and protecting the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences faculty from cuts to the benefit of scientific research. Heffernan wishes to provide a doctor to follow every student around, and pledges to help any student with academic difficulties by doing their coursework for them. It’s not all fun and games for the Obama lookalike however, as he also wants to publish the SU’s accounts in full.
The elections will decide next year’s editor of this newspaper, as the SU’s Communications Officer is also the Editor of The University Times. In the race this year are current UT News Editor Ronan Costello and Trinity News’s Sports Editor, Eleni Megoran. The position was uncontested last year. Costello aims to impress with his slick Facebook page coupled with his news and promotional experience, while Megoran looks to appeal to the college’s female voters, with a design recalling the iconic “Rosie the Riveter” poster, a feminist icon.
Ronan Costello looks threatened by Trinity News Sports Editor Eleni Megoran
John Cooney and Rachel Barry duke it out for the position of Education Officer this year, as Cooney returns from a year away from the SU to focus on his studies. The final year Mechanical Engineering student will have his work cut out against SU Assistant Campaigns Officer Barry, who also sits on the Undergraduate Studies committee. The two candidates agree that library opening hours need to increase, but Cooney focuses on reforming the SU to make it more approachable, while Barry focuses on the numerous committees that she, if elected, will have to sit on.
Ents, usually the most entertaining of the races, will see current Ents Executive Secretary Elaine McDaid face off against JS Law student Chris O’Connor. Notable by his absence is Ents Exec Technical Officer Tiernan Kennedy, who pulled out at the last minute to clear a path for long-time friend and colleague McDaid. O’Connor wants to see cheaper Ents nights and a Deal of the Week expanded to clothes shops and off-licences, while McDaid focuses on her four years of Ents experience and her plan to offer the services of Ents to any club, society or student who wants to organise an event, what she terms “Collaborative Ents”.
Over the next week and a half, make sure that you’re following The University Times on Facebook and Twitter, and keep an eye on TimesOnline as we drop our video election debates each night this week, starting with the testy Communications confab tomorrow.
Who will you be voting for? Let us know in the comments.
Tom Lowe, Editor
