Formerly disgraced candidate wins GSA presidency despite lacklustre campaign
JASON LOZIER
Rui Huang won the race to become the new Graduate Student Association (GSA) President by a margin of 69 votes, despite failing to make an appearance at the election, and spending little effort on his campaign.
Returning Officer Daniel Horsfall announced the election results on Friday, spontaneously remarking: “Huang would probably want to convey his surprise at winning without campaigning.”
His campaign was based upon just one poster, and he was informed of his victory by Nouse. The President’s salary is around £7,000 for their August-July term.
Huang, who won with 148 of the 238 votes cast for President, was disqualified from last year’s re-election due to a breach of campaigning rules, at the start of a “turbulent” and disorganised period for the GSA at York.
His manifesto for the current year appeared not to have been thoroughly updated since, as it included five points already won by the GSA. Like Horsfall, many are questioning how he won the presidency with no campaigning.
The new President stated that to avoid violations this year he “read through all the rules and used other ways than campaigning. Students won’t stop to read posters and we can’t put them in kitchens.”
Instead, Huang says he relied entirely on talking to “a mixture of students on campus: some Chinese, some international, some British. I know a lot of people and had contact with people before.” When informed, Huang did not express surprise at his victory.
A source within the GSA told Nouse that his success is due to students’ recollection of his previous campaign and sympathising with Huang’s subsequent disgrace.
He said that he hopes “other students will be understanding” of his absence at the announcement. He claims to be leaving his part-time job – the factor preventing his appearance on Friday – in the coming weeks.
The turnout for the Presidential election, at 238 ballots or about 8%, was only 2% below the national average. Other positions received a total of 100 voters or less. Aside from the Presidential position, Welfare Officer and Academic Affairs Officer, positions were un-contested or not stood for.
Horsfall stated that Huang “will most likely be a good President, and is a good person, but just lacked a legitimate mandate.” At the elections Huang expressed high aspirations for GSA’s future, wanting it to be “international, about passion and enthusiasm.” He wishes to expand the Careers Service this term, after his training for the job.
An anonymous ex-officer commented: “I am very disappointed but not surprised that Rui won, as in the last year he made no effort in anything GSA related other than the elections.”
Many of the new officers demonstrated great promise for the future during questioning at the elections. Horsfall voiced his optimism for the organisation, while reserving caution towards disengagement with the GSA by graduate students.
According to Academic Affairs Officer Kieran Alden, the University is lucky to “actually have a GSA”. The new GSA Academic Affairs Officer has attended three other universities without a body to represent post-graduate students
The position of Welfare Officer was the closest contest of this year’s elections. Heather Rowley and Tom Farnhill made disparate opponents, each with very different experiences to bring to the role. Rowley won by the narrow margin of three votes. She expressed her happiness at being elected in her speech and made particular “thanks to the last three people” that voted.
Rowley has previously stated her greatest weakness as not “knowing when to let go” in trying to help others with their problems, which may have encouraged voters to elect an Officer with a genuine interest in their welfare.
New Services Officers James Cousins and Finace Officer Richard Rhodes were both uncontested in the elections. Rhodes gave a minimalist speech, saying: “I’m glad to see every post-grad voted. It’s good to see such good engagement.”
Alden kept his acceptance speech concise with a resolute statement: “I won’t let you down” His manifesto stressed his competency for the position rests in his previous experience as an “academic representative at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.” He wishes to “work with, not against the University.”
YUSU President Tim Ngwena, also present at the elction, commented: “Don’t let Huang’s absence undermine the rest of the new committee.”
21 responses below. Comments are open.
Leave a Reply
Related Posts
Popular This Week
Polls
Loading ...
Camilla, you are so wrong…
Rui clearly must have some degree of commitment to the job if he is willing to run after losing, then winning, then being DQd & then being made ineligible to run in the subsequent by-election. Good luck to Rui and the rest of the GSA over the next 12 months.
Comment edited by a moderator
Could a moderator please tell me why my comment was edited? As far as I am aware I wasn’t making a statement that could bring legal proceedings against Nouse/YUSU or damaging the welfare of a student.
I was merely trying to hold Nouse to account in the same way they hold every other part of York to account. It is so hypocritical for you to edit my comment when you look at the many articles Nouse journalists have produced which have far less of a factual origin than mine.
Remember what you have done next time you moan to YUSU about them asking you to take something out of the paper.
Let me see if I can make a similar comment without it being edited.
From what I hear, the recent Nouse elections were a complete sham. Apparently people who were not members of the society were allowed to vote for committee positions (breaking Nouse’s constitution).
Is this true?
Haha – I didn’t even give any details and my comment was edited.
Rumour also has it that ex-York students were voting too. I’m all for ex-students commenting on Nouse.co.uk but voting at Nouse elections? I don’t see how the results can stand when the margin of victory for Editor was so small.
Can you imagine the Nouse headline if YUSU/ISA/GSA/a College JCRC made the same kind of mistake and then tried to stop the papers from printing it?
Tobias, I wouldn’t know because I was at the front and the ex-York’s were a bit further back, but even if they had voted, they were literally a handful, so your suggestion that it would affect the results, even if they had all voted the same candidate (ie. not cancelled themselves out), is dramatic to say the least.
“Rumour also has it that ex-York students were voting too.”
I’m presuming you’re aiming that at me. There’s nothing in the YUSU constitution banning non-York students from joining societies – only from holding positions in them. And the Nouse constitution doesn’t mention it either – I fail to see why it’s an issue. And as far as I’m aware, everyone in the room was a society member – there was someone on the door checking membership and getting people to pay up if they hadn’t.
The elections were done completely above board – Tim Ngwena even attended the elections (at least for the senior positions) to make sure it was all kosher and made no objections at the time.
No, my comments were not directed at you personally but I can’t help but think one of the edits you made to your original post was aimed at me…
Ex-students, by default, are not members of YUSU. They can apply to be associate members (have you?) which allows them to join societies, etc but not have a say in any form of democracy, allocation of funds, etc These are legally introduced and pan-SU enforced restrictions
Union democracy, which I believe is democracy for all levels of the union, is restricted to Ordinary members only.
If the Editor is a signatory of the accounts, and as a result has access to YUSU grant money, then the legal restrictions on who can elect that person are stricter and (as far as I am aware) limit voting to ordinary members of the union only.
Tobias is absolutely correct – it’s why students’ unions have ‘layers’ of
membership.
If the GSA had let people who’d already graduated vote in an election, Nouse would have slammed them (again). I hope Vision picks up on this
story, they’re going to have a field day!
Fancy citing particular parts of the constitution to back up those claims?
>> I can’t help but think one of the edits you made to your original post was aimed at me…
Which edit in particular are you referring to?
Okay, just realised I was being hypocritical for asking you to cite constitution when I didn’t do it myself to back up my claims.
From the articles:
“18.1. Clubs and Societies may be recognised by the Union provided they meet the requirements of ratification and do not contravene the Union’s aims and objectives or equal opportunities policy.”
“Recognition of” is not equal to “a constituent part of”
“8.2 [...] Only ordinary members shall be entitled to speak and vote at Union meetings, stand and vote in Union elections and hold office in clubs and societies.”
The restriction there is to *holding office*, not being a member of. This also backs up my assertion above. If society elections were considered Union elections, then why does the constitution consider them separately?
Many societies actually do have non-students as members – I know people in Dance Soc who were locals who came for the lessons (and were society members) as well as people in some of the musical societies. This isn’t uncommon. I was, for a year, a member of Oxford University’s Salsa Society.
And the only thing in the schedules referring to society elections.
“3.5.8. Election rules require candidates to leave the room and Single Transferable Voting to take place”
I can’t see anything regarding special election rules for signatories or anything saying that society membership is exclusive to ordinary/affiliate/reciprocal members (which, by the way, I am).
Chris, you’ve missed part of the Schedules of the YUSU Constitution.
…a constitution which includes:
3.3.1.c) regulations stating that non-student members cannot vote and may not hold office
The Nouse elections were carried out in agreement with the Nouse constitution. A member of YUSU was present to assure that no irregularities occurred, and no formal complaints have been made by YUSU to Nouse. If anyone would like more detailed information on the elections please contact me by emailing editor@nouse.co.uk – I would be happy to talk to you. Further comments on this story not relating to the GSA Presidency will not be allowed through moderation.
Touched a nerve, eh editor?
Outrageous censorsip……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. of not giving us the full number of votes for the positions other than president.
I just sent the following letter in for the next print edition. I wonder if it gets let through moderation here:
Dear Editor,
Can I ask why, on Monday 16th November, you made the decision that posts regarding the Nouse elections would be moderated out from appearing on the story about the GSA elections? This seems rather contradictory whilst allowing a massive debate about Lewis Bretts on an article to do with RAG beneficiary elections.
It seems to me to be a case of massive double standards. Not least, for a publication that has prided itself on non-censorship – in particular shouting about YUSU Officers pulling items from the paper on grounds of student welfare.
Would Nouse therefore like to clarify their position on the issue of freedom of debate?
how the tables have turned !!!
It’s hardly a question of freedom of debate, that’s one for places like China – if you’ve got a complaint send the editor an email rather than leaving comments completely irrelevant to this article.
If Nouse publish an article on their elections, then I’ll be happy to comment on it there. Is there going to be a story releasing the results officially?
I don’t think that it’s a big deal. I can name a handful of societies from the top of my head that have student membership and I can’t remember having seen anything that expressly states otherwise. If you think that it’s a problem then talk to Rhianna Kinchin about it and gather some evidence – obviously having 200 non-students voting in a puppet Chair to spend YUSU funds would be outrageous so maybe there should be rules in place?
Either way, Nouse was acting in the same way as many societies and didn’t think it was behaving out of order, so it’s not really a scandal. Of course, I agree completely with the points that they’d report it as a scandal if it was any other institution so I’m very much expecting to read a totally over-the-top story in Vision about it: and I’m sure that they’ll enjoy writing one
I very much doubt whether the people above are actually that bothered about it and I agree with the Editor that topics like this (and like Lewis’ discussion in the other thread) aren’t relevant… it’s up to the administration in question as to how much they moderate but hopefully after this thread we won’t see any double-standards. I think that the team should draw a line in the sand and move on. There are lots of strengths and in-fighting will just damage York media! Nouse has an opportunity to grow stronger with a great team and they should do just that
So Nouse can essentially crap on whomever they wish to… but as soon as it comes back on them it must stop and we must draw a line in the sand?
Another reason why this publication is a joke.