So my friends were campaigning to be president and vice president of their student union. One was the current vice president and the other has served on the union executive committee for two years. They were up against one other pair. Neither of this other pair had experience in student government (at least, at a University level). My friends had a solid manifesto with aims to campaign to bring student income above the poverty line, as well as continuing work they did in office to reduce carbon emissions within the university. The other team's manifesto was almost entirely unrealistic (as in, they made promises and targets in areas they had absolutely no authority in). Their main point was to do with making freshers week better (despite it being the most successful freshers week to date), and similar "improve the night life" points, none of which they would be allowed to do because their remit does not extend to such things. So I felt my friends had this in the bag. But they didn't. They lost. Despite being the more experienced candidates, despite being the more realistic candidates, despite beating their opponents hands down in the open debate, they lost. It then came to my attention that their opponents were "jocks" (or at least as jocky as you can be in a university). The University they are at is a small one, so personal connections can go a long way. Perhaps in a scenario where who you know doesn't account for as much, my friends would've won. Student apathy is another big factor (although this exists across all voting and public participation systems). In secondary school this problem existed. Positions like Class President and the like were reduced to popularity contests. Thankfully the position of school captain was a staff vote. I thought that the necessity for adult intervention would have dissipated by the time the teenagers had become undergraduates, but this does not seem to be the case. It may just be that my friends lost. I am bias to an extent, but I really do think they had the superior platform to campaign from. Having lived through the reign of some pretty awful student presidents who were there for a paid gap year, I really felt my friends could make a difference. So does anyone else think that democratic voting systems fail to produce the most appropriate candidates in small scale elections? Do alternative, superior systems exist that might produce better results?

I'm a firm believer in Democracy as a completely failed and useless idea on any but the very smallest scale (As in three, and it works the best when one is out sick and the other is away on vacation). It just happens to be easier to keep running or setup than anything else.

Personally I think the University should be able to over turn any candidate that ran on a platform that exceeded the power of the position they were running for. If someone wants to improve things out side the scope of the position, then they should form a group and lobby for the changes.

Democracy is a terrible system.

All the alternatives are even worse.

Quote: Original post by Winegums
Positions like Class President and the like were reduced to popularity contests.

What in history has ever given you the opinion that popular elections were anything else?

Fun fact: Except in Bush v. Kerry 2004, every single US presidential candidate that has won the popular vote since the first televised presidential debate in 1960 has been the taller candidate.



"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." - Winston Churchill

To be fair, having an extensive social network is a valuable asset when it comes to get things done. I'm not saying your friends aren't the best candidates. From your comparison they seem to be, at least when it comes to experience and common sense. But charisma can go a long way. I guess in an ideal, Sesame street like world, working together would be the best option.

Quote: Original post by Mithrandir
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." - Winston Churchill

I like this quote, because it is true; however it doesn't negate the fact that democracy is slowly becoming worthless and we really need to find a new way to do things.

Granted, this new way would probaby see all those in power out on their ears which means it would never happen, but I guess we can all dream....

Democratic elections, by definition, are popularity contests. Whichever candidate is liked more, for whatever reason*, will get more votes and win the election.

*Ideally, the reasons are "good" reasons. The candidate has more experience, better ideas, etc. But nothing prevents "bad" reasons from having just as much influence. The candidate has good looks, has promised a lot of good things (without explaining how to actually get any of those good things done), etc. If only "good" reasons came into play, political advertisements wouldn't really work at all.

Quote: Original post by Winegums
Despite being the more experienced candidates, despite being the more realistic candidates, despite beating their opponents hands down in the open debate

None of these, in themselves, make your friends the better candidates.


Also, what has been said - elections are nothing but a popularity contest.

As far as I can tell this isn't a failing of democracy just that you don't like the result. Your guys might be better qualified but at the end of the day the electorate chooses who they want and that doesn't always mean the better qualified people automatically win. Losing and blaming the system seems like a cheap way of avoiding looking at the failures of the campaign.

Abertay or Dundee?

Ah, the joys of university student politics. At least your winning side had somewhat sensible goals - sure, maybe unfeasible for their power, but at least I can envisage how they'd improve student life. The main policies of the winning side in my first year seemed to be "fight capitalism", "fight the government" and to ban Mars bars campus-wide because Nestle were evil (I'm not making that last one up).

Our right wing group's main policies seemed to be to just tick the left off as much as possible. This led to bizarre situations where the main powerful left group would lead a massive rally to parliment house to protest in favour of students right to free speech. The right group would hold a counter protest arguing the merits of government limits on students free speech. The left group countered this by beating the crap out of them. It was at about this point that I decided student politics was too Twilight Zone to even bother following.

Finally, in my final year right wing groups managed to win power after they a) amalgamated into a single mega party and b) the left wing group failed to get it together enough to register for the student election. I lost touch of what happened specifically after that, but it wasn't too much later that the leadership of the right wing party were arrested for wide-scale fraud.

And bizarrely, it seems a lot of these student politicans go on to run for government...