Contained in the next issue of Salient (Issue 22, September 22) will be a news piece regarding (mainly) the election campaigns currently being run by two of the four presidential candidates – Sonny Thomas and Jasmine Freemantle. When I interviewed Jasmine for this article last Thursday afternoon, she made several allegations against Sonny that I could not sufficiently verify as fact. Therefore, Tristan decided that in order to prevent accusations of bias being made against Salient, we exclude these comments in the edited article that appears in tomorrow’s issue.
However, on Friday afternoon, Tristan and I were cc’d into an email Jasmine sent to the Returning Officer that lodged a complaint against Sonny and his running mate, Freya Hill, as copied below:
Dear Roy,
I have a couple of complaints concerning my opponent for VUWSA President, Sonny Thomas and his running mate, Freya, who is running for EVP. They have been consistently postering over my posters en mass – for example, yesterday at Pipitea every single of my posters had one of Sonny’s or Freya’s over the top of it.
I also noticed today that every single leaflet of mine was removed from the main Easterfield lecture, about 2 hours after I had heavily leafleted it. All of the leaflets for Marika Pratley and Sam Oldham (general executive candidates) were also removed.
On Tuesday night, after Sonny found out that I was standing for President, he threatened to run a smear campaign. He announced this to Joel Crosgrove, VUWSA President. He threatened to make false allegations to the student body about my personal life of an extremely serious nature (which, if he does, could be grounds for a complaint under the VUW Statute of Student Conduct).
Today Sonny has been going around lecture theatres and elsewhere at the University, making personal attacks and being highly bullying and aggressive.
This is the fourth VUWSA election that I’ve stood in, and I have never seen a campaign get this dirty. I would like this to be about the direction of VUWSA, not bullying and character assassination.
It would be appreciated if you could take action on this as it is a gross hindrance to student democracy.
Kind regards,
Jasmine Freemantle
Salient asked Sonny for his response:
Jasmine –
This is all hear say – you should at least back up your claims with evidence.
This campaign has been dirty – a dirty smear campaign that you’re ticket started. You claimed that I was trying to sell off clubs. You sent an email and attached my name to it – and you started these dirty tricks.
I have consistently said that I will not draw myself into these pathetic jibes, choosing instead to challenge your record – a record of poor governance that resulted in students voting for “No Confidence” instead of you in 2002.
I have challenged you on your policy, of which you have none.
Your entire campaign has been set up to attack me – and I think this is a bit rich.
Anyway, I trust that students will trust me to run their association where I will accountable for their $2million, I’ll be a strong advocate and I’ll offer leadership that students will trust.
Regards,
Sonny Thomas