Elections 2016: Mates or Manifestos?
There have been few opportunities for candidates to show what they really stand for
Last week, Theresa Davey wrote an interesting article about the nature of union elections and how they are, essentially, a popularity contest.
This is a real danger associated with student elections when, due to the short election period, it is difficult for the candidates with well thought-out policies to be separated from those looking for a cushy job. It therefore falls to media to assist the electorate in deciding who the fakes are.
Meet The Candidates was supposed to take on this role, but was interrupted by technical difficulties, leaving candidates a disappointing 2 minutes to talk about why they should be elected. It was therefore planned for an ICradio show (yes, Imperial has a radio station) to interview these presidential candidates in an extended format, allowing them time to expand on their views. This would have been a great step towards giving the candidates the accountability they all claim to want.
When the prospect of the show was broached to candidates they rightly expressed concerns about the potential bias and the supposedly poor tone taken by the show’s hosts. The union was rightly involved and agreed that as long as the hosts showed no bias the show would go ahead. The show was then given the union’s blessing, with advertising featured on the twitter pages of the current Union President and the union itself.
Whether the host would have provided bias or not we will never know, as around half of the candidates dropped out with 57 minutes’ notice, resulting in the show’s cancellation and unsavoury internet bickering from both sides.
The way the whole thing turned out was rather disappointing.
In my mind it was unprofessional for the candidates to drop out of a commitment so late, and it quashed a great opportunity for them to show their substance.
The social media feeds of the presenters has hardly helped their claims of impartiality, with messages before and after justifying and confirming the fears of the candidates who later withdrew.
It is annoying that what could have been an interesting show providing a great insight into who does and doesn’t have what it takes fell into a silly high school-esque flame war that just made everyone look foolish. Looks like we’ve got the beauty contest we were worried about before all this began.
