Elections are open, the poster dash is underway and you can see a full list of the runners and riders at www.lufbra.net/elections. Pete Childs' predicted that there would be about 25 candidates last week, so he must be quite disappointed that there are only 18, one more than last year's count.
Action, Rag, Finance and Democracy are all uncontested. Former Towers Hall Chair, Ali Cole, is the sole candidate to replace Childs and his BNOC status and Union experience seemingly scared off any competition. Elsewhere, Rag's Vice-Chair, Amelia Baxter, decided against taking on Max Turner, preferring to concentrate on her studies. Rumours that Lee Adams would stake a second candidacy for the Soc Fed office also came to nothing.
For me, the two most interesting contests lie in the battles for the Media Centre and the role of Vice President for Education, arguably the role of the highest importance in light of the tuition fee rise and students' desire to get value for money.
Media pits two girls against each other, both with inexperience in multiple sections of Media's output, one with links to halls and the other to clubs and crucially, both are photogenic and come across positively in photo's and LSUTV's videos. Call me a cynic, but that takes out a lot of variables and so a superficial community with a high proportion of males will now surely have to choose purely on the quality of the campaigns and manifestos?
With regard to Education, both Lazar Zindovic and Matt Jones have experience from previous elections, the latter being part of Lucy 'Power' Padolsey's tussle with Ian Jakings, while Zindovic assisted fellow Rigg Rut resident, Rebecca Bridger, running one of the most successful campaigns in the history of campus elections. Picking a winner is almost impossible at this stage.
