Candidates for Student Government (SG) positions officially put their hats in the ring Wednesday, but the race for Executive Slate is already all but decided. Next Generation is running almost unopposed, since the only other slate to enter the race is Delta Upsilon's (DU) Moose Party, which has stated it is not running to win.
The Next Generation slate is composed of third-year and undergraduate liason to the board of trustees Greg Nance, second-year and representative David Chen, and first-year and current representative Patrick Ip. Nance is running for President, Chen for Vice-President for Student Affairs, and Ip for Vice-President for Administration.
The Moose Party, perennial satirist of SG Elections, is composed of Delta Upsilon brothers Riley Heckel, a third-year running for President; Cyrus Eslami, a first-year running for Vice President of Student Affairs; and Alex Casariego, a first-year running for Vice President for Administration. The party has lost for 16 years running, and isn't seeking to win this year either.
Greg Nance is also a DU brother, and Casariego said that, while the Moose Party will have a full-fledged platform, the party is more interested in bringing humor to the election. “We definitely do support Nance. We definitely do want to get some of the vote but we're not actually trying to win,” he said.
Nance expects his fellow brothers and opponents on the Moose Party slate will be especially prepared to put on a good show at the elections, but doesn't anticipate tough competition from the party, which is composed of three of his best friends, he said.
Still, Nance regretted that his party did not have more competitors. “This is a sub-optimal outcome for democracy. Serious competition would keep us on our toes,” he said.
First-year DU brother and Moose Party supporter Jean-Michel Hoffman was enthusiastic about the inter-fraternity competition. “The election will be a win no matter what for us,” he said.
Current Vice President for Administration and second-year May Yeung said the Moose Party may be a potential contender in the race. “In previous years, the Moose Party has brought up the concerns of the students,” said Yeung, referring to some of the slate’s more serious platform items, like using Flex Dollars off campus.
Yeung said that the current Executive Slate is concerned about the number of contenders. “Measures were taken to encourage people to run,” she said; one such measure was extending the petition deadline two days to Wednesday. In past years, Yeung reports that petitions have been due on either Monday or Tuesday of second week.
First-year Frank Alarcon (another DU brother, who will run a serious campaign), second-year David Akinin, and third-year Rafael Menis are running for Undergraduate Liason to the Board of Trustees. Alarcon is a College Council representative.
The College Council Class of 2011 has only three candidates running for four available positions – current representative Jason Cigan, Namita Gupta, and Isabel Hujoel. According to third-year Executive Chair of the Election and Rules Committee Paul Connell, vacant seats are not an anomaly. “They’re usually filled by write-in candidates,” Connell said, with “100 percent confidence” that the spot will be filled that way.
The candidates for the College Council of 2012 are Edward James III, Youssef Kalad, Nakul Singh, Pamela Villa, and current representative Sohrab Kohli. For the Class of 2013, Nelson Zhu, Emmie Schlessinger, Rebecca Kim, Neil Shah, Vicki Peng, Jakub Tucholski, Athena Xie, Sam Scarrow, and current representative Travis Benaiges are running.
