It’s Swain’s world

Nick Swain has been elected as the next President of Warwick’s Students’ Union (SU) in a contest which was overshadowed by a prominent Re-Open Nominations (RON) campaign and an especially strong performance from joke candidate Aaron Bowater.

Swain beat opposition from Binita Mehta, Aimen Burham, Tanmoy Sen and the RON campaign to secure the presidency. Bowater came second in an upset performance which resulted in ‘serious’ candidates placing lower than expected.

Voting turnout increased from last year, itself a record turnout, with 5,883 students voting overall, up from 4,823 in 2011.

Swain told the _Boar_ that he was “really excited” about winning the presidency. He attributed his victory to his “honest” manifesto. He added that “a lot of the other campaigns forced a lot of things down peoples’ throats”.

He anticipated the biggest challenge of his presidency to be the rise in tuition fees. His priorities would be education and “sorting out” Union democracy.

SU President Leo Boe commented on his successor “It’s great that he’s been involved in so much, and I think his many years here will only contribute to his presidency. I think it’s great that we have a mature student as president for next year.”

Bowater commented on his runner-up status: “we were running a campaign based on hope and development; if that’s a joke then I don’t want those people voting for me.” On losing out to Swain, Bowater said “it was a shame that Nick felt it was necessary to push a message of fear and hatred against our message of freedom and hope.”

He added that he “never considered winning, because Nick had the forces of darkness on his side. If we had won there would have been a Greggs.” On the possibility of running again next year, Bowater said: “we’ll evaluate where we are again at this stage next year; if Tamnoy runs again, I’ll do everything in my power to stop him.”

On the subject of joke candidacies and the general discontent with the presidential candidates that accompanied the elections, Boe commented that: “What is interesting is that Bowater and RON did so well. Aaron ran a very original campaign, but I think there’s a broader question there about how students feel connected to their Union and how they perceived the extent to which presidential candidates understood the role of president.” He added that: “I’m hoping that next year the votes that went to RON and Aaron will go to people who are credible candidates.”

James Entwistle became the next Education Officer. He described his victory as “a shock” and described his predecessor, Sean Ruston, as “a god” who had done a “terrific job”. Eden Kulig placed second.

Current Education Officer Sean Ruston was dubious about Entwistle’s ability to deliver on his campaign promises: “it will be harder than he thinks”, said Ruston, “especially the pledge to introduce a limit of 12 contact hours a week.”

Anna Chowcat won the race for the new post of Postgraduate Officer by a significant majority, followed by Judi Blackwell.

The winner of the Welfare and Campaigns Officer position, Ben Hodges, was not present to give his acceptance speech due to being in Zurich for a job interview.

Silkie Cragg easily won the race for Societies Officer, with a total of 1,980 votes after two rounds of elimination. She was followed by Alex Ooi with 761 votes. Cragg said that she had won because “every point in my manifesto is completely achievable”.

The closest vote of the evening was for the position of Democracy & Development Officer. Cosmo March beat Jonny Sherwood by a slim margin of just 56 votes.

Natasha ‘BAM’ Cabral will take over from Chris Sury as Sports Officer. Benji Thompson was runner-up.

Democracy Officer Chris Luck commented on the winners: “The Union is in a safe pair of hands, it’s a great team for 2012/2013”. He added that it was “fantastic” to see an improved voter turnout.

Concerns that the RON campaign would be successful were dashed when it failed to win over any of the other candidates. Although a substantial 752 first preference votes were cast for RON in the presidential election, Ruston said that the campaign failed because “the candidates ran good, energetic campaigns; without a huge scandal or a coherent narrative RON was never going to win.”

The election also marked a break from last year, when four incumbent Sabbs were re-elected. 2012’s line-up is comprised of an entirely fresh team after none of the eligible Officers stood for re-election.

The position which attracted the most votes was President, with Postgraduate Officer as expected receiving the least votes.

Other interesting demographic changes included the increase of female Sabbatical Officers. Just one female Sabb was elected last year, and none the year before. Boe said that he was “elated to see that there will be so many active female voices on the team” this year. Three women were elected, for sports, postgraduate and societies.

Controversially, three Warwick Snow candidates secured election. Boe said that he hoped “the high number of Warwick Snow post holders don’t turn Warwick SU into a cliquey Union.”

A poll conducted by the _Boar_ on whether students were happy with the new Sabbatical team saw 43 percent of respondents state that they were not. Third-year English student, Viral Shah, commented that he was “looking forward to radiators in the Atrium. Welcome to the next stage of the dumbing down of Warwick student politics.” Other students were more supportive of the new Sabbs. Michael Timmins, a second-year PPE student said “the criticism I’ve seen so far is massively unjustified, societies may well play a part in the elections but this is no way means that they won’t do a fantastic job.”

Approximately 88 percent of voters were undergraduates, with just 8 percent of voters defining themselves as postgraduates. 38 percent of voters were first-years, 27 percent second years, 27 percent third years, and 7 percent fourth years.

Significantly more male students voted than female, with 54 percent of voters identifying as male.

The department with the most voters was Warwick Business School, who comprised 10 percent of all voters, closely followed by Economics with 9.94 percent of the overall vote.

Students who identified as British were the most likely to vote, with 78 percent of voters falling within this category.

The Boar and SIBE collaborated to create a video documenting the election week. To see it, click the link below.