Activistenpartij secures half of the seats in new CSR
The Activist Party (Activistenpartij) will hold half of all seats in the new Central Student Council (CSR) during the upcoming academic year. The radical-left student party has gained three additional seats through delegates appointed by the faculty student councils, on top of the four seats it had already won in the central student elections.
A diagonal line pointing upward. When Carlos Fitton Gómez, lead candidate of the Activistenpartij, heard the results of the most recent student council elections, he traced his party’s growth through the air with his arm: a little bigger every year. The mood was already jubilant within the radical-left party, which had secured 4 of the 7 directly elected seats in the Central Student Council.
The celebrations within the Activist Party are unlikely to have faded in the meantime. Now that the various faculty councils have selected their delegates to the Central Student Council, it has become clear that the party will hold 7 of the council’s 14 seats in the coming academic year. In practice, this means it will be virtually impossible to push proposals through the council without the approval of the Activist Party, something that was still possible at times this year.
Stance of the council
Whether the Activist Party majority will affect the council’s approach remains to be seen. Historically, the party has – as its name suggests – focused primarily on activism. Its 2023 manifesto, for example, stated that the party was “well aware that real change is not possible within student councils alone.” Instead, it placed greater emphasis on actions such as occupations and obstructing major decisions.
At the same time, the current CSR, which includes six Activist Party members, has been notably cooperative. Achievements such as securing weekend opening hours for the Bushuis during exam periods and obtaining additional funding for Dutch language courses for international students were made possible in part by the relatively positive relationship between the Executive Board of the university (CvB) and the student council. It was no coincidence that outgoing rector magnificus Peter-Paul Verbeek described the current CSR as “highly effective” during his final consultation meeting and expressed the Executive Board’s hope of continuing that constructive cooperation next year.
Text continues below the new distribution of seats in the CSR.
Fragmented CSR
That cooperation will have to take place within a student council that is, aside from the Activist Party, highly fragmented. The remaining 7 seats in the Central Student Council are divided among 6 different parties. The liberal De Vrije Student won 2 seats in last month’s elections, while the left-wing UvASociaal secured 1. Through faculty council delegates, the international student party Inter, the FNWI-based party Lief, the ACTA party Kies Acta, and the newly established Axios will also be represented on the council next year.
