It was a long wait for the VUWSA election results last night. Like, a fucking hour. The Salient team turned up at Eastside at six on the dot, and was then – gasp – forced to socialise with wannabe student politicians until the results came out at seven. James kept whinging about how hungry he was. Caroline Prendergast was already drunk. No surprises there.
But anyway, the results. Geoff “the Maori” Hayward is now the President elect, having beaten incumbent Nick Kelly by about 160 votes. Gareth Robinson and Fa’afetai Ta’ase both got owned, but that wasn’t exactly unexpected. Geoff ran a highly energetic and personal campaign, laying the blame for the problems VUWSA has had this year at Nick’s feet. So let’s just hope he can deliver where he argued Nick failed.
Geoff looked more than a little surprised at the result, and Nick, well, he looked like he’d been kicked in the guts.
Joel Cosgrove, who was running against No Confidence for the Education Vice-President, was returned to his position by 210 votes – the lowest margin any of the candidates had over No Confidence. His “lover” Heleyni Pratley was elected to Welfare Vice-President by ten votes, narrowly beating Anna Duggan. Caroline Prendergast was punished for her – shall we say – approach to exec politics, receiving what could only be called a pasting, with almost 200 votes less than Heleyni.
Many voters found the pirate platform of Treasurer candidate Ryan Parry attractive, but he lost out to the seriousness of Alexander Nielsen, who also got elected to the general exec but has chosen to stick with the financial side of things. Maybe his campaign was being secretly funded by ninjas, who knows.
Alexander choosing the money rather than the bag means that the lowest polling candidate for general exec – Christopher Renwick – will now receive a position on the executive. Having spoken to a number of people involved in VUWSA, Renwick’s election is perhaps the greatest worry for next year. Aside from his questionable past involvement in other organisations, he has a reputation for being difficult to work with – a concern that some VUWSA staff have already voiced.
International, Queer, Environmental and Women’s Officer were all pretty unsurprising, with No Confidence and Clelia Opie both taking a thrashing. Cordelia Black was returned to Council Rep after running no campaign, against three very promising candidates. I’m picking it’s because she has boobs. And Nicholas O’Kane was unseated from the Publications Committee by Christopher Bishop, who strutted around Eastside last night proudly sporting a Margaret Thatcher hoodie.
So there you have it. The people have spoken.