Tonight’s Union Hustings could be the most important evening of this drawn out 16 day process. No sweets and no catch phrases, just candidate vs. candidate, manifesto point against manifesto point.
While ‘Why I Hate Elections’ has divided opinion on the best way to run the Executive Elections in Loughborough, whichever side you are on, the Union Hustings is your chance to hear from candidates and get your questions answered.
A good turnout tonight will prove the gimmicks and the sweets are unnecessary, that Loughborough students care about policy and people as much as sweets and fancy dress and potentially clear the way for changes to next year’s process.
Candidates will speak about their manifestos and their experience, often answering questions like what they intend to do and why they want to do it (expect ‘The Student Experience' to be used a lot) but rarely will they explain how.
This is an ideal chance to separate the closely fought positions, how are they going to achieve their manifesto points? How are they going to build, encourage, develop and promote? This is what I feel we need to get from this evening.
Without these answers, it will be impossible for union councillors and students to hold the Executive to account for their actions next year and only by holding to account can students make sure they get what they want from their union. If you vote for a candidate on the basis of a policy, which then doesn’t come in, something should be done.
What will hurt this process most is planted questions. There were murmurs that some EHB Husting questions were planted and this can only harm the process. It’s unfair, not only on the candidates, but also on the rest of the voters who have valid and relevant questions which will test all the candidates. This is especially important if time is tight and questions from the floor are limited as we fear it may be.
Union Hustings provides the best chance of the elections yet to really test our candidates and make sure we get the right people in the roles for next year, let’s not waste it.
You can follow the events of Union Hustings on Label Online’s live updates online as well as joining the debate with @labelonline on Twitter using #execelections.
