News

OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan was successful in her re-election bid, after handily beating the four other candidates in the voting for the 2011 Executive.

Geoghegan took the race with a total number of 948 eligible votes. Her closest rival was current Clubs and Socs Rep Dan Stride, who received 704 votes. 
   Stride was, however, successful in attaining the position of Financial Services Officer for 2011, narrowly beating Brendan Asplin in one of the closer results of the day. 
   Over 3130 votes were cast for the position of President, representing 14.9 percent of the student body, down 3.3 percent on last year’s turnout (18.2 percent).
   Brad Russell took out the position of Administrative Vice President in a landslide victory, and both Katie Reid and Sarah van Bellekom overcame ‘no confidence’ votes to take up the positions of Education Officer and Recreation Portfolio Executive Officer, respectively. 
   The International Students Portfolio went to Ivy Lim, who almost tripled the amount of votes received by the nearest competitor. 
   Shonelle Eastwood and Dan Beck both won tight races to secure the positions of Welfare Officer and Campaigns Portfolio Officer respectively.
   Meanwhile third time was the charm for Franscisco Hernandez, who took out the position of Colleges and Communications Portfolio Officer by nine votes. This was his third year of running for a position in the OUSA Exectutive, having been unsuccessful in his two previous attempts. 
   A by-election will be held for the position of Post Graduate Students Portfolio Executive Officer, after the only candidate withdrew just days before voting closed.
 
   Controversy. Of course there was controversy.
   The voting was not without controversy, after Geoghegan was docked 265 votes after it was decided by Returning Officer Victoria Nicholson that Geoghegan had used OUSA resources in the course of her campaign. 
   Geoghegan was accused of aiding her campaign when she took part in an OUSA art structure that illustrated how much collective debt University students were in. It was decided that this had impacted positively on her chances of getting re-elected, and a portion of the votes were accordingly rendered ineligible.
   Dan Stride was among those who complained to Nicholson.
   Speaking to Critic, Geoghegan said she was pleased to have maintained her position as President, after a campaign that was not always pleasant. 
    “[The campaign] was absolutely horrible … people were so personal about it. I guess that’s because they couldn’t have any solid policy arguments against me … they resolved to use some really dirty tactics.”
   The dirty tactics Geoghegan referred to took the form of the leaking of emails, and a poster smear campaign by some of Strides’ supporters, asking whether the student body would prefer “Boobs” (Geoghegan) or “Brains” (Stride). 
   Stride denies personal involvement in the campaign, saying he looked on in ‘horror’ at the way the Facebook interaction was playing out. 
   “I would consider some of the elements of the campaign particularly bitchy … it never really appealed to me,” Stride says.
   Geoghegan’s breasts weren’t the only casualty of the campaign, with Postgraduate Rep hopeful Kate Amore withdrawing from candidacy after a vicious campaign against her and a mass email questioning her aptitude was sent to all postgraduate students by a former OUSA Post Graduate Rep. This has left the Postgraduate position currently unrepresented, and it will be subject to a by-election shortly.
   While Stride was unsuccessful in his bid to become President, he managed to secure the position of Financial Services Officer, which means despite the tensions present in the campaign, he and Geoghegan will be working in very close proximity to one another next year. 
   However Stride is confident this will not affect their ability to get their jobs done. “Harriet and I are both adults, we can work together. We both have the best interests of students in minds, and any disputes we have are political not personal.”
   Geoghegan is not so certain. She thinks the working relationship will be “interesting, given [Stride] had a lot to do with the [smear] campaign. I think Brendan [Asplin] would have been better for the job. I’ll just have to suck it up and move on.”