Last week saw the candidate forum for the 2024 OUSA Exec nominees. It was an opportunity for the candidates to campaign for their chosen positions and appeal to the masses - the masses being the current exec, their flatmates, and Radio One and Critic. That was about it.
In what some might call a new low for student political engagement, four out of the ten positions only have one person running, meaning that they’ll be in uncontested unless they receive a vote of no confidence. Academic rep has no nominees at all, meaning another election will have to take place. Alarmingly, one of the uncontested positions is President, the top dog role in the exec, with this year’s Postgraduate Rep Keegan Wells as the sole candidate.
On the topic of low engagement, Keegan pointed out that the position was historically one of the most contested, yet engagement has plummeted to the point where she was spinning yarns alone on stage about rebranding the position’s name to ‘Big Chungus’ to avoid allegations of her (an American) running just because of the title ‘President’, and also detailing how awful pelicans are just “as a concept”.
Vice President is also going uncontested, with second-year Marine Science student Emily Williams running - a fact she was shocked to learn only after having applied. She also studied under Dr. Christina Riesselman, which our editor notes is “a slay”. Another shoo-in is Abby Clayton for Finance and Strategy Officer: a self-proclaimed “non-math girlie” who blamed the lack of competition on the fact that it “sounds super hard”. She mentioned some sort of controversial spending project that she’d like to cut back on, but said that it was in the Uni’s budget line, not OUSA’s. And she wouldn’t tell us what it was because she didn’t want to get cancelled. We’ll see how that one goes!
Finally, there’s also Emma Jackson for Clubs and Societies Rep, who wanted to streamline the application process for new clubs and while appearing to have little knowledge of the current process. Our reporter admittedly zoned out a little during these parts of the forum since they’re gonna be on the exec anyway.
Compared to last year’s forum (which was fairly dominated by talk of reopening a student bar), hot topics throughout the policies of nominees in the contested positions of Welfare and Equity Rep, Postgrad Student Rep, International Student Rep, Political Rep, and Residential Rep were mental health, cozzie lives and the tertiary sector cuts. One of the residential candidates, Stella, spoke to the common experience of the link between the quality of accommodation in Dunedin and mental health as well.
The “know-how” among the nominees appeared to be lagging in part, with some awkward pauses and “can I get back to you on that?”s in response to some questions, but all in all, the candidates for next year’s exec are all passionate individuals eager to do their part to advocate for the student body - whether it be bolstering support networks, writing submissions on student allowances or putting subtitles on lecture slides. I guess.
You’ll be able to find the candidate’s blurbs in the culture section of the mag - just past the puzzles. Voting opens 9am Monday, September 18th, and closes 4pm Thursday, September 21st. There are even New World vouchers up for grabs if you do.