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The search for a better candidate

First off, anyone who isn’t reading Gazette Associate Editor Arden Zwelling’s blog posts about the upcoming University Students’ Council elections should start now. Go. Do it.

Now that I’ve promoted Mr. Zwelling’s blog, it’s time to talk about elections and the move he sees towards a more insular elections process as put forward by the USC, a viewpoint I disagree with.

First off, I think it’s naïve to say the desire to move to a system where candidates have an understanding of the election system is solely coming from the USC. Of course, there are people on the USC who see a benefit to having someone in charge who knows what they’re doing, but I think the average student can also benefit.

Why?

Let’s examine last year’s election, where self–proclaimed “non–USC” candidate Marshall Goldfarb campaigned mainly on a platform of three dollar meals in the Spoke. A platform point that proved popular enough to garner Goldfarb fourth place and over 1,000 votes. A platform point that, if enacted, would have provided a massive financial stress on the USC during an already straining year.

Anyone with a working knowledge of the organization would have known from the start that putting such a plan into action wouldn’t be possible, yet the idea caught on. And why wouldn’t it? Provide a persuasive enough argument to put a unicorn in every residence and you might as well call the election right off the bat.

It’s why there’s a “new debate” happening.

Yes, any student should have a run at the USC presidency, but this new debate will ensure that those who have thrown their proverbial hat into the ring have at least done some of their homework first. In the same way I wouldn’t like to have someone elected mayor without knowing a little bit about the city of London, I wouldn’t want a USC president who doesn’t understand what their position entails.

Because really, what we have to remember going into this election is that we’re not really electing a politician in the traditional sense. We’re electing a CEO for a one–year term, who has limited accountability after their brief term is over. They also have a vague job description that doesn’t help matters much.

USC presidents don’t have the luxury of being able to spend a year learning the position and a year devoted to actually moving the organization forward in a meaningful way — they have to perform both tasks simultaneously. They already spend a month of the year transitioning with the previous president, so why not try to make sure that time is spent more on passing on institutional memory instead of learning who’s who and what’s what?

A more educated pool of candidates would make for a more honest election process, since candidates with impossible platform points would be called out by their opponents. It might also mean the end of vice–presidential positions leeching the cream of the crop away.

And as always, it’d be great to see students actively involved in the election process and not voting for someone just because they happen to remember someone’s name. With the new rules coming down the pipeline regarding signage, perhaps we’ll see a campaign where candidates actually reach out to their constituents and convince people on the power of their arguments.

Or one of the candidates will change his name while the other buys a pet monkey for campaign promotion. Anyone want to guess what’s more likely?

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