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News

Nikalas Kryzanowski, News Editor and Monica Carino, Associate News Editor

news @theotherpress.ca

Revitalize slate sweeps to power

Scores eight of 11 seats in student union election

Nikalas Kryzanowski

news editor

i Douglas Students’ United slate did everything in their power to win over the college this spring. Their well-oiled campaign chugged along, spearheaded by experienced student politics veterans Ally MacGrotty and Matthew Steinbach. They had a strong presence in the atrium, did classroom speaking and had the majority of their candidates attend both all-candidates forums. Yet in the end it wasn’t enough. Last week the opposition Revitalize slate led by Geoff Lenahan and Sebastian Bubrick won control of the union in a nearly clean sweep. Eight members of Revitalize were elected to the Representative Committee, while only three members of Douglas Students’ United won seats.

The low-key campaign put on by Revitalize-underscores the low intensity of student politics at Douglas. It may be that Douglas Students’ United, with all their effort, used an axe to cut to the heart of the campus political scene when a scalpel would have sufficed. In a college community where voter turnout for a student election barely exceeds five percent, Douglas United seems to have over-estimated the necessity of appealing to a largely politically apathetic student body.

The 2008-2009 board of the Douglas Students’ Union will be a mixed bunch. Many of the old guard held their positions, but several new faces will also join the fray in the coming year.

In the most surprising outcome, incumbent Matthew Steinbach lost his spot to newcomer Hassan Chaudhry for the post of DSU College Relations Co- ordinator. The unofficial tally reveals a tight race of Chaundry’s 219 votes to Steinbach’s 210. If these results are deemed official, this means that Steinbach—who has been among the DSU’s most active politicians this year—could be excluded from the DSU committee come summer. Since the race was so close, he intends to weigh his options. Recount requests have been evoked and he has also expressed concern over a number of electoral procedures.

In other contests, longtime DSU fixture Ally MacGrotty will return for a third term as she comfortably defeated former member-at-large Shaun Dhakar for the post of Internal Relations Officer. MacGrotty suggested that she

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File photo showing some of the winners of last week’s student election. From

left to right: Sebastian Bubrick, returning

David Lam Rep, Geoff Lenahan, incoming Treasurer, Roohafza Rahimi, outgoing Treasurer, incoming Member-at-Large Christine Nieder, and incoming Internal Relations Officer Alysia MacGrotty.

is disappointed with the outcome of the election and its procedures even though she won her seat. Expressing hope that she can use her new term as a chance to continue her work towards achieving a U-Pass for Douglas, she has also implied that a Revitalize-dominated board may derail these plans.

Incumbent Geoff Lenahan won election as the union’s new treasurer, beating out accounting student Alex Orlovskyy for the DSU’s de facto top position.

Both Deep Singh and April Taylor, who ran unopposed for External Relations Co-ordinator and Pride Liaison respectively, received the blessing of the student body with both receiving resounding “yes” counts.

Revitalize also swept all the three Member-at-Large positions. Newcomers Brandon Johansson and Jerin Mece will

take those positions and former Disabled Liaison Christine Nieder will move into her new role. The new Women’s Liaison is Sandra Gwardys who defeated Mae Velasco. DSU critic Nathaniel Wolfe and

-administrator of the Facebook group

“DSU Elections 2008: A Neutral Forum” believes that Revitalize was successful because their campaign was more realistic and honest, while the Douglas United campaign was “too textbook” and lacked vision from individual members. “T found that the members tended to fall back on promoting the continuation of campaigns that had originated from the Canadian Federation of Students, rather than promoting themselves as active members of the community at Douglas College. The candidates did not seem prepared to speak outside of a rehearsed list of campaign promises and many of

them acted panicked or aggressive when they were asked questions that they were not prepared for,” he said.

Wolfe also suggested that the Receivership issue was moot as the centre piece of Douglas United’s campaign. “The Douglas Students United slate focused on wanting to take steps to get the Douglas Students’ Union out of receivership, when the union is already on its way out of receivership,” he said. “This change in control is an act that was put through by the Receiver Manager, with or without the help of the members of the incoming Representative Committee,” he added.

Voter turnout was low, as expected. Roughly five per cent of the student body turned up, representing approximately 450-500 students.