Post-Race Analysis - VPAA

It's hard to critique a race in which all four of the candidates were running and standing on nearly exactly the same issues. With the candidates all approaching the race with the same stand point, and the real lack of tension between them (come on, have you ever seen such a bunch of nice opponents), the only thing going for this race was the fact that four people were standing. That and perhaps the old/new Labour battle: Bruce is a senior Labour Club member, appearing in a party broadcast (as seen on YouTube) for the Labour Party, so it was perhaps a surprise that the majority of Labour Club members were on Ben's team ... or more crucially that Ben was on Josh's team, something I had seen when he went into a Josh campaign meeting on Tuesday night.

The fight itself played out like the Presidential race from last year, except that this time new Labour (Ben) didn't defeat Green (Anna). Anna's win obviously was a shining moment for the Green/P&P group (contrast Tim Gee's reaction with Anna, with that of Josh), and I'm not too surprised she won. As I said to her 4 weeks ago at the Politics Away Weekend, she was always going into this race as odds-on favourite, more so especially as the only female sabb candidate. She went for the Sabrina Russo Method: pretty picture on the posters, combined with a strong manifesto. I doubt it was all down to this, but in an election which didn't set the pulses racing, it's hard to tell.

It'll be an interesting year in the next SRC, with Bruce returned to Mathematics and Ben to History & Classics, it'll only be Kwan not at the SRC, which is a step down after 2 years of heavily committed time on many EUSA and Uni committees. I would like to see Kwan make a return - hopefully in the October elections as Physics Rep, and I am sure that Bruce & Ben will continue to do a damn good job in their respecitve schools.