Student council election debate focuses mainly on ties with Israel
The annual student council elections will begin on 9 May. The final debate preceding the elections took place this afternoon at the Room for Discussion debate platform. Emotions ran high among the four parties participating in the direct elections for the Central Student Council (CSR): “Your party is indirectly complicit in the Palestinian genocide.”
The student council elections are coming up again. This Friday, students will vote for their favourite candidate to represent them in the Central Student Council (CSR) and the faculty student councils. For the CSR, 215 students registered. Number of seats: seven. On Thursday afternoon, four party leaders argued fiercely for election in front of an audience of about a hundred people at the Room for Discussion debate platform.
Over the past two years, the radical left-wing Activistenpartij has dominated the CSR, providing its chair since 2023. Last year, the party won three of the seven seats on the council. The Activistenpartij advocates far-reaching democratisation and ‘decolonisation’ of the university. Moreover, its members do not shy away from ‘extra-parliamentary means to achieve these goals’. Former party leader and former CSR chair Noah Pellikaan, for example, will stand trial on 15 May for his role in the pro-Palestine demonstrations in May last year.
The party was also a pioneer in the motion of no confidence against the UvA board after the police cleared the pro-Palestinian occupations in May 2024. “The UvA must listen instead of suppressing students with police violence,” said Francesco Bruseghini, leader of the Activistenpartij, during the debate in the REC-E hall. Bruseghini, founder of De Nieuwe Mensa, is already a member of the CSR and is in line to take over the chairmanship of the student council from his party colleague Stefana Feciuc next year.
‘Left-wing stronghold’
In response to the dominance of the left-wing voice, a number of UvA students founded a branch of the right-wing conservative Vrijmoedige Studentenpartij (VSP) at the university. The candidates criticise what they see as the UvA’s ‘left-wing stronghold’. Among other things, the party opposes ‘boycotting individuals because of their beliefs’. The VSP was not invited to the debate because, as a new party, it does not yet have a seat on the CSR.
This afternoon, the more right-wing views were therefore mainly represented by the liberal party De Vrije Student, which has shrunk in size over the past year. The party has been active in the student councils since 2015 and on Thursday was fierce in its criticism of the other parties for ‘not taking responsibility for the violence committed by demonstrators’. However, party leader Pieter-Joost van der Plas was regularly met with derision from the audience. Several students felt that De Vrije Student was indirectly participating in ‘a genocide against the Palestinians’, as they made clear during a question and answer session in the hall. The liberals responded by stating that the pro-Palestina action of the past year had caused considerable (material) damage to the UvA, “damage that now runs into millions”.
Last year, interest in the student elections rose slightly. The total turnout for the CSR elections was 16.1 percent. To make that percentage more representative, the UvA is calling on lecturers to talk about the upcoming elections in their lectures this year.
Ties with Israeli institutions
The left-wing UvASociaal, which has been active in student politics for many years, also believes that ‘all ties with Israeli universities’ should be cut. The UvA had already severed ties with The Hebrew University, but according to UvASociaal and the Activistenpartij that is not enough. “Hasn’t it now been proven that Israeli universities systematically contribute to the genocide of Palestinians?”, asked Activistenpartij member Bruseghini heatedly.
According to a visibly irritated opponent, Van der Plas of De Vrije Student, the ethical committee for foreign cooperation should primarily be taken as a guideline. Although the party voted against making the commitee’s advice binding last year, Van der Plas believes that the debate on the ties should at least be conducted ‘in a constructive manner, as it has been today’.
Budget cuts
In addition to concerns about collaborations with Israeli universities, the news that the English-language bachelor’s programme in Psychology is being discontinued by the UvA (and other universities) has also caused anger among several student parties. The international student party Inter is particularly upset about the opposition foreign students will face. This is especially true now that the UvA has to implement more than 100 million in budget cuts imposed by the government. Party leader Vaisakh Karuvath: “The UvA should be more transparent about the planned budget cuts, especially in psychology.”
Although the Room for Discussion interviewers also raised other topics, such as binding study advice, mental health and opportunities for neurodiverse students, the debate remained fairly tame. The questions from the audience focused mainly on one related issue: how should the student council deal with the university's ties with Israel and the associated pro-Palestinian protests?
Bruseghini received several rounds of applause from the audience on this topic. According to him, protesting remains essential, despite the new ‘restrictive’ house rules of the UvA, which the Central Student Council has already rejected. “We must continue to make our voices heard at demonstrations and through the student council until the university listens to us.”
This article was updated on May 9.
