UvA elects | Turnout for student council elections continues to rise
With half a day of voting still to go, this week’s student council elections look set to result in a turnout we haven’t seen in a long time: more people are voting than ever before in recent years.
An interim poll of turnout for the student council elections shows that turnout at various faculties and for the Central Student Council (CSR) appears to be breaking records. At 12:50 p.m. this afternoon, the PPLE department was in the lead with a turnout of no less than 62 per cent, which is unprecedented.
At the Acta dental faculty, students are also turning out in large numbers compared to previous years: 44 percent have voted so far, whereas last year no elections were necessary due to a lack of candidates. Relatively high turnout figures have also been reported at the Faculty of Economics and Business and in the medical informatics and psychology departments. The figures for the humanities and the science faculty are also significantly higher than in previous years.
Central Student Council
In the election for the seven direct seats on the CSR, turnout is currently 19 percent, much higher than we have seen for a long time. According to a spokesperson for the central electoral committee, turnout for the CSR is ‘even higher, because the votes of the dentistry students still have to be added’. The Faculty of Dentistry Acta – which includes both UvA and VU students – is in a separate counting process for technical reasons: VU students do not vote in the UvA elections, which leads to a different counting system. The CSR has fourteen members; seven of them are directly elected, while the other seven are delegated by each of the seven faculty student councils.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations
Why turnout is much higher than in previous years remains a matter of speculation, but it is likely that the situation in the Middle East is playing a role: many students feel strongly about this issue and believe that the UvA should take a different course on the issue of cooperation with Israeli universities. In addition, the issue of the possible abolition of English-language bachelor’s programmes may also play a role among an electorate that consists largely of international students who may feel disadvantaged and are expressing this in this way. This year, lecturers were also asked to briefly mention the elections (and their importance) during their lectures.
The distribution of votes among the various parties is, of course, not yet known. Voting is open until 11:59 p.m. tonight. The results will be announced next Friday afternoon, 23 May, in the Muziekzaal of Crea.
