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Once again, the madness returns.
Sweets, stamps, brightly coloured t-shirts and ridiculous puns – its election time again. God help us.
This is possibly the most pointless two-weeks in which contenders, and their overzealous campaign teams, attempt to get your vote so they can sit on the Executive.
After the reveal on Monday, I considered an intense friend-cull on Facebook; profile pictures and friends names changed left right and centre and I was unwillingly added to more groups than I could be bothered to removed myself from. Each demanding I vote for someone-or-other.
It’s now day seven and I couldn’t tell you the name of ANY of the candidates. Baring in mind I probably have greater exposure to election-related news, due to being involved with the media centre and regularly checking Label Online; if I don’t know who these people are, how many others will?
Based on Hey Ewe I’d say the blue team was doing well. They had a good choice of sweets, and were present but not pushy. Meanwhile, the yellow team have lost all hope of a vote from me after their heavily drunken campaigners stood on my friend and aggressively attempted to stamp my forehead (said stamp was confiscated…).
I’ll also be heavily reluctant to vote orange after watching some-sort of incestual campaign session between a number of their team who seemed to take “grinding out a win” to a literal level.
Kudos to the chaps outside with jelly beans – easily my favourite sweet choice. Shame I have no recollection of who you were supposed to be representing. Hardly effective marketing or PR activity now is it?
Throwing sweets at tipsy people waiting outside the union is a bizarre activity that now seems an absolute must for any campaigner despite the fact that it creates no lasting memory of the candidate.
Meanwhile the lecture shout-outs have begun. At least here candidates attempt to tell you what they plan to do in their roles – but then that’s a whole other debate. What exactly do all these positions do? With only a year in the job, can many of the manifesto aims truly be met?
Having a browse through some of the manifestos, there’s clearly a lot of noble ideas being thrown around; but whether they’ll amount to anything is unknown, all that can be guaranteed is a chance for BNOC status.
Ultimately, the policies and motivation behind running really don’t matter – no-one is voted in based on their actual beliefs and plans for the year ahead. It’s just about getting the most memorable coloured t-shirt and force feeding voters with sugar. And finally, praying that when the time comes to vote the lure of a free Hey Ewe entry will be enough to get students to log on and make their choice.
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