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Voting is now open for the OUSA elections, and we have an interesting three-way battle for the top spot. I say “interesting”; in reality it’s a little depressing.

If I could have picked two ideal Presidential candidates from the current Exec, it would have been Blake Luff (the Recreation Officer) and Gianna Leoni (the Te Roopu Maori President). Ruby Sycamore-Smith would have been well down the list, and Zac Gawn would only have made the list at all if I were forced to rank every single Exec member … if you catch my drift.

Somewhat belatedly, I’m beginning to see the merit in Francisco Hernandez’s proposal to bump the Exec’s pay by up to 33 per cent across the board. This year is the weakest lineup of Presidential candidates I can remember, but it’s not due to a lack of talent on the Executive. It’s due to the most talented members of the Executive being older students, for whom a $30,000 salary represents a hardship rather than a windfall.

Yes, being OUSA President is primarily about serving students; it’s not a “job” per se, and candidates shouldn’t be motivated by money. But in saying that, we shouldn’t be offering prohibitively low pay. Students nearing the end of their studies shouldn’t feel as though postponing entering the workforce for a year in order to be OUSA President will leave them worse off, as indeed many of the older members of Exec this year have felt.

$30,000 is too low to attract the kind of high-calibre candidates OUSA is lacking this year, even in a relatively inexpensive city like Dunedin. Fran’s proposed $40,000 sounds about right, and should be put to the student body well before nominations for the 2015 elections open.

Anyway, back to the candidates.

Jordan Watts, the outside candidate, has performed much more strongly than I (and many others) expected. He’s intelligent but doesn’t have Ruby or Zac’s knowledge of OUSA, and his view that OUSA should drop its political role and focus on events and services misses the main point of students’ associations, which is advocacy. Give that up and you give up the need for members or, indeed, an elected President, and when I put this to him at the candidates’ forum he seemed a bit stuck.

Zac has smarts and ambition, and this is his second run for President after losing the last election to Fran. Since then, he’s been the Administrative Vice-President, a role that would give him a strong platform for this election it not for the fact that he’s been useless at it. He’s been so lazy and ineffective that even running for President in the first place evinces more than a whiff of arrogance. He worked hard to make Hyde Street a success, but that’s about it. I like Zac and this is nothing personal, but he hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory this year.

My endorsement goes to Ruby (although it should be noted that for most of this race, I was strongly considering No Confidence). She’s a flawed candidate, and will need a lot of media training to turn her stream-of-consciousness ramblings into coherent soundbites. But as Welfare Officer this year she’s shown a great work ethic (the contrast with Zac is telling), she’s organised events like Women’s Week, and she’s good at engaging students at a grassroots level. She’s also run a campaign that actually treats student voters like intelligent, informed individuals, rather than just running on a platform of “HODOR LET’S BUY A PUB AND PISS AWAY ALL OUR MONEY FREE BEER.” Which is nice.

But whoever you do vote for – Jordan, Zac, Ruby or No Confidence – be sure to vote. Last time the turnout was around 17 per cent. Let’s make it to 20 this time, people! #wecandoit #inspiring #decision2013

-Sam McChesney