Isaac Leigh was the only societies officer candidate. Photo: Katherine Price

Fall in number of SU sabbatical candidates

The low number of candidates running for sabbatical officer positions, compared with previous years, was criticised by students attending the elections results night on Friday 28 February.

The position of societies officer was uncontested with just Isaac Leigh running, following a second candidate dropping out before the final candidate list was posted at the start of elections week.

The democracy and development and postgraduate positions had two candidates each while the president and education positions had three.

Sports and welfare and campaigns were well-contested, with four candidates running for each position.
Isaac Leigh won 3,916 votes to be elected societies officer, whilst running unopposed.

Mr Leigh commented: “I would have loved to have people running against me because that’s what democracy is all about.

“I can’t control who runs against me (or not) and I could only concentrate on my own campaign.

“But the election this year was fought in such a good spirit, with a really high calibre of candidates, and I hope we can encourage more people to run next year because it’s been an incredible week.”

The current societies officer, Ant Scott was confident that despite the lack of competition – which “sucks” – his successor was more than suitable for the role: “It would have been nice to have more positions contested… there were other people that ran against [Isaac] but when they saw his name, they chose to withdraw their application, so I think it just shows how strong a candidate he is.”

Christianne Whitehouse, a third-year History of Art student supported Mr Leigh but believed that the election could have been re-opened: “I voted for Isaac, but I do feel like it should have been open to more people, I feel like if more people at Warwick had opted for that option [R.O.N] then it would have been a fairer race.”

Jenny Cooper, a fourth-year French and German student commented: “I think it’s unfair because there’s not really any choice.”

Lily Summer, a fourth-year French student added: “It kind of annoys me when there’s one person running, because there’s not any competition.

“I think it should only run if there are two or more people.”

Some students were more surprised than disappointed with the situation.

Lily Huggins, first-year Management student and president of Warwick Anti-Sexism Society, told the Boar: “I was really surprised at the societies position [being uncontested] because obviously Warwick is on a campus and so societies are a really important part [of student life]… but I thought that it was great that there were four women running for Sports.”

Not all students thought that the number of candidates had fallen however.

Tim Greenwood, a fourth-year French and German student said: “I’ve been here three years… each year there’s definitely been more candidates for pretty much every position, and for societies I was pretty surprised that there was only one candidate.”

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