OPINION: The VUWSA Election Gives Us No Choice

Words by Maia Ingoe (she/her)

Unless you actually have a life, you may have noticed it’s VUWSA election season—students’ yearly chance to have somewhat of a say in who makes up our student union. By the time this article is published, voting on yet another lacklustre VUWSA election with, for the most part, zero options, will have closed.

It wasn’t any surprise to anyone who the newly elected VUWSA President was when announced at the AGM on 28 September: Marcail Parkinson, a student activist well-versed in VUWSA and university bureaucracy. Whether Marcial is qualified or not isn’t the problem here: it’s that she’s elected uncontested, with no brave challenger in sight.

This is the third year in a row where a VUWSA President is elected uncontested, signalling a dire trend of dwindling engagement in student politics. This is more evidence than ever that candidates willing to put their dignities on the line to advocate for students are a critically endangered species.

The President’s role isn’t the only one with a single candidate putting their name forward. Academic Vice-President, Clubs and Activities Officer, and Sustainability Officer also all have one candidate to choose from, and were elected uncontested.

Within this zero-choice zone there is no ability to hold student representatives accountable. Students just have to shrug their shoulders and accept the only running candidate. If we have an election for only one candidate, is it really democratic at all?

I dragged myself to the VUWSA exec ‘debates’, held a week before voting opens. I say debates with a grain of salt, as they’re a tired panel where each person politely gives a practised speech. There was a tiny crowd watching in the Hub—most of them likely just there to eat their lunch. There was no engagement and none of the heckling you might’ve found at the Wellington Central debate that same week. Student politics, it seems, is just plain boring (I mean, even Salient didn’t write anything about it until now).

This dire state of uncontested candidates is not the fault of the student body, but the fault of VUWSA for failing to stay relevant and put forward student candidates that can inspire, engage, or mix things up in the stagnant executive system. The VUWSA exec and election alike are inaccessible and unnoticed, so much so that a mate of mine admitted they’d never even realised the VUWSA offices were there, always skipping past the entrance to the student union to go straight to pat some dogs at the bubble. VUWSA is struggling with a crisis of meaninglessness.

Will yet another uncontested President be the one to fix its chronic lack of engagement? Or will the era of willing candidates finally be stretched to its end, and student politics cease to exist in years to come?