Huge drop in SRC nominations

Nominations for the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) closed last Friday. 80% of all positions on offer are either unopposed or received no nominations at all, with 34% receiving no nominations and 46% receiving only one nomination.

This year the council received 41 nominations for 27 positions, compared to 62 nominations for 33 positions last year. Out of the 41 positions listed as open on the SRC website, 14 received no nominations and 19 received only one and will therefore be uncontested.

70% of positions that received nominations will be uncontested, as opposed to 46% last year.

All Vice-President roles are contested but the role of President remains uncontested once again. Current VP for Student Support, Lauren McDougall, is the only candidate nominated for SRC President. Last year, two sabbatical roles were uncontested compared to one this year.

The role of VP Education has received four nominations: Stephen Brown, Emma Hardy, Muhammad Fahd Asif, and Lawrence Stewart. Scott Kirby and Hannah Makonnen are standing for VP Student Activities, and Fatemeh Nokhbatolfoghahai and Tom McFerran are standing for VP Student Support.

Current SRC President Kate Powell commented: “This year we did a lot more to advertise the elections including spending more on promotion, holding information sessions and stalls in the Library and Fraser Building. We also did more to promote what we do as a council by producing monthly blogs and holding events. As a democratic organisation we would prefer to see an increase in students standing for positions and for these positions to be contested, so it is disappointing that there isn’t an increase in nominations this year. However, we are pleased to see an increase in our contested sabbatical positions.”

Voting for the Spring Elections opens at 9am on 28 February and closes at 5pm on 1 March.