UvA elects | Thirteen student parties compete for the favour of UvA students
The student council elections are just around the corner. Fifteen parties have submitted their candidate lists on time. Will they be able to continue the slight upward trend in voter turnout? Voting starts on 9 May.
This afternoon, the UvA’s central electoral committee announced in a public meeting which parties will be participating in the student council elections in two weeks' time. There are thirteen parties in total, spread across the seven faculties and the Central Student Council (CSR). Almost all of them are well-known parties that participate every year, with one exception: the right-wing conservative Vrijmoedige Studenten Partij, which won two seats at the VU earlier this month and is also participating in the student council elections in Leiden.
Boom in candidates
In recent years, it has been noticeable that – judging by their surnames – more and more candidates have an international background. This trend is continuing this year: not only are there many internationals on the list for international programmes such as PPLE or the international party Inter, but there are also large numbers of internationals on the electoral lists of other parties and programmes. The exception is the Vrijmoedige Studenten Partij, which only has Dutch surnames on its list.
Another striking feature is that almost all parties have submitted an extremely large number of candidates, far more than they need to fill the seats. This may say something about the enthusiasm of students for these elections. It is also possible that the boom in candidates is caused by a change in the candidate nomination procedure: since this year, registration is electronic (and therefore easier) than in previous years, when the lists had to be submitted in person to the central electoral committee. Perhaps this will lead to a further increase in turnout, which rose slightly last year compared to previous years.
215 candidates
The CSR, for example, has seven directly elected members. Six parties have registered for these seven seats, with a total of 215 candidates. The Activist Party UvA alone has nominated 53 candidates for the direct CSR election (33 last year), UvASociaal 62 (50 last year), De Vrije Student 32 (15 last year) and Sefa Student Party 49 (11 last year).
The leader of the Activist Party UvA, the party that currently provides the chair of the CSR, is bachelor's student in media & culture Francesco Bruseghini, who is already a member of the CSR. If he is re-elected and becomes CSR chair, we can expect extra attention for the sustainable canteen: he is co-founder of De Nieuwe Mensa.
Many candidates have also been nominated at the faculty level. At the Faculty of Economics and Business, which has a student council with ten seats, 53 candidates have been nominated (last year: 40). At the Faculty of Humanities, a total of 33 candidates have registered (last year 27) for 12 seats. Even at Dentistry Faculty Acta – where there are often too few candidates, meaning that no elections need to be held – more candidates have registered than there are places: the Acta student council has eight members, but 11 candidates have registered. So there will be a choice at Acta this year too. The exception is the number of candidates in the subdistrict Child Development and Education: no candidates have registered there, so students will not be able to vote.
Vrijmoedige Studenten Partij
New this year is the participation of the Vrijmoedige Studenten Partij, which is also participating at other universities. It is a national club that could be described as right-wing conservative. The party says it is radically in favour of academic freedom and sees no value in ‘safe spaces’ and diversity officers. The party is now represented not only at the VU, but also in Utrecht.
A profile of the Vrijmoedige Studenten Partij will be published on this site tomorrow.
The student council elections will take place from Friday 9 May to Friday 16 May. All UvA students are eligible to vote and will receive a voting link in their mailbox. The results will be announced on Thursday 22 May in the Music Hall of Crea.
