Hustings hustled?
February 16, 2009 by Dorian Valentine
This article was written on Monday 9th February. I’m stating this because they say a week is a long time in politics, and this won’t be published until next week. I’ve just got home from the hustings at East Slope Bar; a night of inspirational speeches, with a packed house of excited voters cheering themselves hoarse. I’m sure everyone will also remember Tom Wills electrifying the house with his opening speech (and setting a hell of an act to follow for the other presidential candidates). I’ll readily admit that I was as excited as everyone else listening to him speak.
Where things started to go wrong though was during the individual questions for the candidates. For anyone who didn’t attend the hustings, I’ll briefly describe the format: the candidates take turns to make their opening speech outlining their campaign points, before handing over to questions from the floor. The first four are general questions which are answered by each candidate in turn, but the last set of questions are tailored to each individual candidate, the aim being to challenge them or to force them to take a stance on a point in their manifesto. Basically, the questions either totally screw you over or play right into your hands, depending on the mood of the person writing them.
‘I’d like to think that our elected officials are a bunch of decent and trustworthy people’
Whoever was writing them clearly had it in for Luqma – the question put to him was (paraphrased), “last year you ran for activities officer and failed. What makes you think you can do it this time round?” This drew a rightly-deserved round of boos from the floor at the harshness of the question. Luqma took it on the chin though and dignified the question with a response which brought the house down, as much in sympathy as anything else.
Following this blatant attack on someone who, in all honesty, was never one of the strongest candidates, I did a bit of digging to try and find out who it was who had it in for the guy. The answer shocked me – while the general questions are submitted by the floor, the individual questions are composed by the current sabbatical officers. I couldn’t get my head around why our sabbs would single out one candidate with such an unfair question when others including Tom Wills had questions which seemed to play straight into their hands.
The rules governing the election process ban the sabbatical officers from actively campaigning for any candidate (obviously, this is an anti-corruption measure), but one could be forgiven for falling under the impression that Tom has a good number of our elected officials backing him. Looking at his Facebook campaign group I was surprised to see Adam Farrell as a group administrator. It’s a conspiracy theorist’s field day – the sabbatical officers have just enough control over the hustings to give “their man” a nudge in the right direction by helping him prepare, whilst undermining the other candidates on the night.
I really do hope I’m wrong about all this. I’d like to think that our elected officials are a bunch of decent, trustworthy people. Certainly those I’ve spoken to seem honest, hardworking and passionate about their roles in the running of USSU. But these concerns are still out there and they’re not going to go away with the change in leadership. I therefore call on USSU to make public all details and processes involved in the sabbatical elections, including the comprehensive rules governing the election, full details on who selects and writes candidates’ questions at hustings, and full details of how and by whom votes are collected and counted.
If people don’t know the system they cannot be expected to trust the system, and the entire electoral process becomes nothing more than the wool being pulled over our eyes.
I’ll be voting this week, as will hundreds of us, and I’d like to think that my vote actually can make a difference.
Notes from Editor: Sabbatical officers are allowed to campaign for candidates provided they book the time off work and they do not wear any item of union uniform.
The Hustings questions are not written by the sabbatical officers, they were written by the Elections Working Group which was made up of sabbatical officers and union staff.
Tagged: corruption, Elections, electoral process, luqma, sympathy, Tom Wills
Dorian,
I am pleased to say that your suspicions with regards Adam Farrell’s involvement in the hustings are ungrounded. Some of the USSU Sabbatical Officers were indeed part of the team that wrote the questions, but Adam was not one of them.
With regard the wider point that Luqma’s question was unfairly harsh, I would agree that he did have a very difficult question. However, after his response – and the enormous cheer it brought from the crowd – it is also fair to say that it was the best one he had that night, and brought a triumphant end to what had been a slightly unsteady night.
Although I can’t remember Will’s question exactly, I do recall that it attempted to highlight some of his overtly political and left-wing policies. This is the kind of ‘difficult’ question that hustings should be about: bringing to light a controversial point and seeing how the candidate responds. As it happens, Wills fielded it well, and the response form the crowd (and indeed the elections) showed that a political stance was not as unpopular as might have been expected.
Josh
I’m flattered that I handled my question so deftly that you would assume there was some foul play involved. I have made no secret of the fact that Adam Farrell has supported my campaign – he signed my nomination form on display at the polling stations, he is an admin on my Facebook group, and he knocked on doors with me on a couple of evenings. But to be perfectly clear I prepared for the hustings entirely without the help of any of the sabbatical officers.
Josh has answered your concern about who wrote the questions. I can add that the rules governing the elections are already publicly available on the USSU website:
http://www.ussu.info/files/con_ue.pdf
Let me draw your attention to part UE A 65: “UE A 65 Any objection to the result of an election must be submitted in writing to the Returning Officer, within four clear days of the posting of the result. Union Council has the power to resolve any disagreement.” If you have a substantive complaint about the result then I urge you to submit it according to the proper procedures.
While we’re concocting conspiracy theories, there is no student at Sussex by the name of Valentine, nor for that matter is there a Dorian. Who are you?
Josh, Tom,
I’d like to thank you both for your prompt responses to the concerns I raised in this article. I’d like to make it clear that I am not complaining about the result of the elections – you both had the largest proportion of those who voted in your favour and I’m sure you’ll do a sterling job next year.
What I am complaining about is the apparent conduct of the sabbatical officers during the elections. While some of my concerns may be unfounded (as indeed the responses from both the editors and yourselves show they are), I still feel there is greater room for transparency and inclusiveness in the way the elections are conducted. Sadly, there are many students, particularly on the “science side” of campus who feel this to be true of USSU itself. It would be nice if the new leadership made an effort to change this, as it is my personal view that the Student’s Union should represent and act in the interests of all students, and not just the few who choose to make themselves heard.
Tom Wills,
Is there any particular reason why you needed the support of Adam Farrell on a Facebook group to win the election? Surely, a strong and outstanding candidate such as yourself should be able to prove to the voters that he is worthy of the presidency, without the involvement of anyone else.
Was it any other less-than-left-wing candidate who requested the support of a Sabb, I’m pretty sure they would have been denied it. The clause in the various rulebooks allowing the Sabbs to support candidates should be wiped out; the candidates should be able to do it alone with whatever support they can muster. The influence that any Sabb will have when seen to be working closely with a running candidate is undeniable. It would be like the Minister for Education handing out flyers and rosettes for the Labour party.
The Sabbs made you their candidate of choice, and the only reason they got away with it is because the rules that you all signed in the beginning of the election campaigns allowed them to do so. Should NUS actually have a copy of these rules and a description of what occurred during election week, there would be raised eyebrows.
The Sabbs have a responsibility to be impartial and demonstrate a fair and just process. If, in the wildest realms of imagination, there was some corrupt activity occuring during the elections, all 13,000 students on campus would have a permanently tainted perception of the USSU. So I would reiterate what Dorian requested in the article – make clear to the students of Sussex the ways in which the election is run.
I wonder also about the opening speech you delivered at the East Slope hustings. It was nothing like the one on Thursday in Chichester. Can you explain this?
The simple fact that Dorian had to write such a revealing article demonstrates that something is amiss. It is unnatural to him and to me that such events can occur unchallenged.
Personally, I don’t care who is President, as I am living abroad next year, but what I do care about is a Union who cares about me and the rest of the not-politically-active student body. Luckily, I don’t have any lectures in Arts A2, but if a group of people had sat in the back of any one of my class rooms, I would have been disgusted at their behaviour and requests. Lecturers, and not just ATs, have less than no time on their hands and can barely devote five minutes to each student, so to have them further distracted by protestors imposing themselves in a teaching space is beyond reasonable. I, and the rest of Sussex students, do not pay over £3,000 a year in tuition fees alone for a tutor to be distracted.
Prove me wrong Tom Wills. Prove to me that you are somehow capable of running for and winning an election for yourself.
As the Acting Returning Officer for this election, I feel that I should clarify a few points here.
Any student can view the election rules and regulations at any time and USSU welcomes in-depth scrutiny of these rules by our members and any other relevant organisation.
The NUS were present and gave a presentation on the election process at the same candidates meeting where the rules and regulations were explained so I’m not sure what you mean with the raised eyebrow comment. In fact, the NUS National Secretary, Richard Budden, and the NUS Regional Officer, Dave Gimour, were both present on campus for the elections campaigning for the referendum and were bound by exactly the same rules.
It should also be noted that just because a Sabbatical Officer is on your campaign team does not guarantee that you will do well. It can, in fact, be sometimes detrimental to a candidate’s campaign if the voters believe that the person in question is not representing them effectively. Furthermore, many times we have seen Sabbatical Officers stand for re-election and not get elected.
There is no rule that prevents a candidate from using a different speech at the second hustings from the first. This is normally the case with most candidates.
I hope this clarifies a few issues.
“The influence that any Sabb will have when seen to be working closely with a running candidate is undeniable. It would be like the Minister for Education handing out flyers and rosettes for the Labour party.” – Annie Hage
Obviously Annie’s comment is a bit ironic, as the Minister of Education being a Labour MP you would expect at least to be handing out flyers and rosettes for the Labour party.
Even still, Annie’s point is interesting, by the involvement of Sabb officers in USSU elections, the USSU system does work a little like the Westminster system – with the established “elite” interested in a continuation of their work via a similar party.
Whether or not this is a problem is debatable, and I suppose it depends on whether you see a new president representing a complete break with the past, or a continuation.
Given that the USSU rotates every year, I suppose the only viable option is to encourage a similarly minded “new” Sabb team. Yet the low (albeit good nationally) electoral turnout presents a problem in itself, as there’s no real scope for opposition when only 20-25% of students vote.
USSU doesn’t need to be concerned with “power conspiracies” for the moment, as the real problem is electoral turnout.
I agree completely with Paul’s sentiment. I find it quite poor that the USSU is proud of a 20% turnout – record breaking though this may be it is still an awful representation of the student body. Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear the views of those who appear to have abandoned USSU? And why for that matter.
Also, Tom, you make a very bold comment there claiming there is noone on campus by Dorian’s name. Do you happen to KNOW everyone on campus?
Poor electoral turnout is the symptom, not the root cause. The real problem is that Sussex has a small minority of primarily left-wing politically aware students who show up to the AGM and vote in elections, and a much larger majority of students who aren’t politically active and who don’t involve themselves in Union business, including elections. The reason behind all this is that for students not directly involved in it, the Union seems to be run by a small clique of students with no obvious way in. Certainly this is the overwhelming impression amongst students in the sciences, who tend to have less free time than humanities students with which to get involved.
The Union needs to combat this image it’s gained itself on campus, and the only way this is going to happen is to get more of the politically apathetic majority on campus involved, or at least give them the impression they are cared about and valued by the Union. Of course, more apathetic students means a shift in the traditional left-wing stance the Union chooses to adopt, so I doubt we’ll be seeing this happen under Tom’s leadership. He is, after all, one of the clique.
To play Devil’s Advocate:
I obviously was concerned by voter apathy over the AGM (and received a fair amount of constructive flack for my suggestions)
Whilst the electoral turnout was not great, compared to the AGM, it was absolutely fantastic. Today I was trying to think of anything the Union could do to encourage voter participation, and I couldn’t really come up with much.
My criticisms of the AGM still stand, but for the elections, there were posters everywhere, candidates appearing in a few of my lectures not to mention the week of a library square full of candidates and supporters.
Put simply, whilst I’m happy to party blame the Union for poor AGM involvement, for the elections, I can’t see any possible way there could have been a better attempt at involving students, at least on this single issue of the elections.
Union involvement year round perhaps could be stronger, and I suppose that *might* increase participation in elections, but that’s a much larger issue. I suppose the incoming comms officer with his “Digital” media manifesto might have something to say on that.
Finally, whilst personally I generally find myself politically opposing the “left-clique” I’ve gotta hand it to them, at least they bother to participate…
Also, In answer to Jenni –
“Also, Tom, you make a very bold comment there claiming there is noone on campus by Dorian’s name. Do you happen to KNOW everyone on campus?”
Sussex Uni provides a database of all registered students accessible on campus networks only here: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/USIS/studentdirectory/
Thankyou Paul for clearing that up, i was unaware of that database.
As for people not bothering to participate, the impression i get is that people without left-views generally don’t because they feel their views are largely ignored because they are not left wing. Whether this is true or not it is clearly a problem as far as participation goes because this conception drives people away and disillusions them – which is something the union could address.
Most definitely,
It’d be ridiculous to blame the “left-clique” ’s existence as the cause of low participation – after all, the supposed “left-clique” represents a dedicated, active and informed group of students.
The methods used in some elements of student politics though, might be a different question. How did the schism caused by the recent A2 occupation (as an example) affect voter support / voter participation for particular candidates?
Does the use of direct action intimidate uninvolved students? Is this a problem?
On the subject of bold comments, I’m currently under the impression that the majority of voter apathy is centred around SCITECH, SPRU and the other schools/departments who stand to gain from the reforms proposed by the University management last year. These reforms were opposed by the Union with the “Sussex not for Sale” campaign. I supported this campaign, but to ape Paul in playing Devil’s Advocate, many students in these departments felt the Union was acting against their best interests, furthering the disillusionment they already felt. The feeling in some quarters now is that the University can be trusted more than the Union to act on the students’ behalf, a sentiment I sincerely hope will at least be of concern to the incoming sabbatical team. Can you really blame these people for choosing not to legitimise a system they feel has betrayed them?
You mention direct action Paul – I personally felt that the action taken against the URNU at the Freshers’ Fair was completely out of line and highly intimidating to anyone in the line of fire. Students on campus deserve the right to express their views without fear of intimidation. Similarly, I can understand why some students would feel intimidated by a lecture theatre full of activists.