De Decentralen to be dissolved in September
De Decentralen, the largest student party of the UvA, has chosen to dissolve itself. As its leaders wrote in a letter to Geert ten Dam, president of the Board of Directors: ‘You win, Mrs Ten Dam. You won, we will stop.’
In their letter, De Decentralen wrote that its seats on the Student Council have made no difference. ‘We don’t know anyone to whom we would want to pass on this ungrateful task.’
It stated that, three years after the Maagdenhuis Occupation, too little has changed at the UvA. ‘Even the creation of more study places in the library has proven to be impossible. All the student council does is to slow down the deterioration of the university — and then only a little.’
The De Decentralen party started after the Maagdenhuis Occupation when, after the first elections in 2015, they secured the most votes and 3 of the 7 directly elected seats on the UvA’s 14 seat student council. The remaining 7 seats are for delegates of the faculty student councils. De Decentralen emerged as the biggest party once again in the 2016 and 2017 elections. With Naomi Appelman, Alex Tess Rutten and Pim van Helvoirt, the party also provided the last three chairs of the Student Council.
The Student Council elections will take place in May. The new council starts in September until which time the members of De Decentralen will continue to carry out their work.
