Democracy At Its Finest

Daniel Lawrie, a Second year McGill student, ran for SSMU VP Internal, one of the many positions that went uncontested.

By John Nnamchi

The mid to late march period probably marks one of the most important and entertaining periods for the student body at McGill. This is the time when the inspired, eager, or downright brave individuals launch their campaigns for the numerous positions of the Student Society of McGill University (SSMU). Of course, representing the entire student body of twenty five thousand undergraduates is a prestigious honor, but historically, SSMU elections are notoriously famous for being extremely controversial.

Last year, competition got the better of the two presidential hopefuls when one candidate’s Facebook account was hacked, and his personal messages between his election team and peers exposed on his campaign page. The year before that, the president’s victory was invalidated, after the losing competitor successfully pushed an investigation claiming numerous infractions of campaign bylaws on the part of the winner. Given the claims were very disputable, a lawsuit then followed. Voters themselves contribute to the mess as well, where the bulk of problems actually begin as questions from the public easily snowball into endless debates. Safe space (November 2015 issue) is a popular topic, where many candidates who suggest improvements for safe space initiatives in their platforms, are bombarded with insults from the community. The huge publicity and lasting reputations can get the better of some, as it did with one girl who dropped out of the race, stating extreme psychological harm resulting from her scandalous campaign story. The saying goes, if you plan to run for student politics at McGill, expect the full, political experience: hence the bravery.

Perhaps this is why, out of the 7 SSMU positions available, around half of the candidates run un-contested. Do not be fooled by this seemingly easy win though: last year, a group of unhappy students ran a Vote NO campaign against the only running candidate for VP External, as they disagreed with his platform. Of the 25 000 undergraduates, are there really so few motivated and caring students willing to represent their student body? Or does the election history cause most to shy away in fear? Although the cause is a probable combination of the two, there is an obvious problem. Nonetheless, the campaign pages of this year’s hopefuls are up; let the show begin.