Democracy in freefall at Stirling Student Union

By Peter Humfrey

 

Three weeks ago a motion was passed at the Stirling Student Union, exposing the crisis unfolding there for student democracy.

 

The plant-based commitment motion set a target of all Student Union food outlets being 100% vegan by 2025. Whilst this has prompted great debate amongst the student population over inclusivity; viability, and the ethics of such a move, the greatest point of concern should be what in fact has happened to student democracy at the University of Stirling.

 

In 2021, at the first round of voting for the Student Union president, just 1159 votes were cast out of a population of roughly 15600. That year Nela Cadinanos Gonzales was elected as Union President; taking 533 votes in the first round, and 546 in the final round. The turnout for that election was the lowest for at least the past 5 years, stretching back to 2017.

Worse was still to come when in March of this year the current Student Union president was elected with just 195 votes in the first round and a shocking 209 in the final round, beating Calum Brown into second place by a nail-biting 9 votes. The Union would go on to confirm this was the lowest turnout for a Spring election “in recent years”.

In a statement at the time a Union spokesperson said – “We note that turnout was low in comparison to pre-pandemic elections and we will be working with both outgoing and incoming Officers and students to further analyse this and establish how we can encourage both more candidates to stand and more students to engage in voting”

 

On another concerning and unusual note, a sabbatical post had not been filled, with no-one running for Vice President Education, despite it being a full-time paid role. The Union confirmed it was the first time on record no-one had run for a sabbatical post in the Spring elections.

In a by-election called on 26th April, incumbent VP Education, Calum Brown would win with just 99 votes. No-one else stood for the post.

In what was quickly becoming a farce, Brown resigned less than two weeks later on the 6th June.

 

Democratic representation had hit an all-time low, and now even a core position in the Student Union, could not be filled.

 

Taking a step back for a moment and it is worth putting into context turnout at Stirling versus the national picture.

Above are the percentages of the student body that voted in the Spring elections for Union President the past 2 years. An already abysmal figure of 6.92% fell to just 4.12% this year, but what does that mean stacked against the national average?

 

 

Well it’s not pretty reading with an already shockingly low national average of 11.7%, partially blamed on the pandemic, vastly exceeding Stirling’s turnout. The next year shows the scale of the problem though with no pandemic to blame as the world has begun to return to normal.

Stirling could not meet even a third of the national turnout. In an on-the-record interview in the run-up to the Spring 2022 elections, VP Communities, Alyson Mackay, was asked if the sabbatical officers could claim a democratic mandate off such a low turnout. In response she would go on to say the following.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think that we can accurately say we represent students when 6% [the 6.7% turnout figure for the 2021 election] of students voted for us”

 

Those words confirmed that even the core of the Student Union, those at the very top, had sat up and noticed the democratic crisis. The slump to 4.1% turnout in the election, just weeks after that interview, was the nail in the coffin for the Student Union’s democratic mandate.

 

There is currently a Union President of whom just 209 people voted for, from a population of 16,000 students. Just 1.3%.

 

In statistical terms that would be within the margin of error, of zero.

 

So where does this leave student democracy at the Stirling Student Union?

 

Voting turnout in terminal decline. Major positions with no-one running for them. Sabbatical officers admitting a lack of a democratic mandate.

 

Where this leads us is to just three weeks ago, when the Student Union’s general meeting on the 10th November voted through the plant-based commitment motion. Just 55.4% of those attending voted for the motion, and with 127 turning up that left 70 students from a population of 17,000, voting the motion through. That’s a microscopic 0.4%, and here’s what all that looks like.

 

 

The motion was proposed by the chair of the Stirling University Labour Society, and seconded by the secretary of the Vegan and Rights for Animals Society (VERA), along with three other motions. This meant two-thirds of the meeting agenda had been proposed by those two societies.

 

The reality is, that in a failing democracy only the most politically active remain, and their ability to shape policy and influence a system becomes greatly enhanced. The passage of that motion was the fault of neither the proposer or the seconder. They represented their agenda and political motivations as they should.

 

The fault lays at the feet of the Student Union for failing to adequately tackle student apathy.

 

The fault lays at the feet of Brig, the student paper that failed to report the motion when it was published on the Union website a week before the meeting.

 

The fault lays with the 16,783 students who did not attend that meeting.

 

Student democracy has died here, and what remains is a deafening silence.