It’s well known that Exec Elections have been described as a “popularity contest”, but this year VP: Union Affairs Max Crawford wants to change this. In the past few years we’ve seen a £100 spending cap and an increased element of debate in the live Bubble Debates, so what’s changing this time around?
The biggest differences for 2016 will be focusing more on manifestos and the removal of the focus on consumes, t-shirts and gimmicks.
Candidate Manifestos will be released a few days before campaigning starts.
A big change sees a list of candidates and manifestos released during media week (the week before the start of campaigning) with reduced pre-campaigning and a time for students to form an opinion of candidates before being inundated with with photos, sweets and candidate costumes.
Reducing the number of campaign t-shirts to 10 but having LSU pay for them.
Hopefully this will allow more people to run and further limit costume campaigning in favor of good manifestos.
More critical Media coverage
Those writing and creating content for LSU Media will be given a greater license to expose weak candidates in order to increase scrutiny.
Changes to the Bubble Debates
The debates have been promised to be run far more like other televised debates and will take place at the end of the first week rather than very early on as in previous years. Having a week of discussion leading up to the Bubble Debates will remove much of the repetition from manifestos and really help students decide between candidates.
Giving RON a bigger role.
Want to know more? Check out the Exec Elections Handbook online.
How big an impact will these changes have? Make sure you stick with Label Online for all the latest News in the run up Exec Elections 2016.
