Cahill, running under the slogan ‘Jane4Change,’ intends to start the fight for a student union building that can act as a social hub, and wants to introduce a fifth week petting zoo for “nervous freshers, flagging second years and stressed out finalists.”
She is excited to start campaigning, saying, “We want to convince people we are capable of making the student union something everyone has a stake in, and that we should be making bigger demands from the University than we have ever done before.”
One of her rivals, Alex Bartram of Team Alex, told Cherwell, “I’m excited to get my message out there. I have noticed that there’s an early front runner in this election in terms of Facebook likes, Louis Trup, which indicates to me that some people think of the OUSU elections as a bit of a joke at the moment. OUSU needs to address issues that are most important to Oxford students, and I think Team Alex is the only team which focuses on these issues.”
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Trup’s Facebook page, ‘LJTrup4ousu4change’, currently has 227 ‘likes.’ He said he’d been inspired to run by an aerobic video on YouTube, telling Cherwell, “I feel about my chances in the same way I feel about my steak: medium-rare.” His ‘personifesto’ includes procuring double beds for all and world peace.
In contrast, Nathan Akehurst, running under the slogan ‘Reclaim OUSU,’ has an election website that states, “We are a collection of candidates who will bring radical change to OUSU to make it a more responsive, democratic and inclusive student union.”
His manifesto goes on to discuss rising costs and equality in Oxford.
However, the website created issues for Akehurst yesterday when a member of his election team jokingly changed the caption on one of the slides to “RECLAIM OUSU Blah blah blah blah blah,” which was then changed to “nathan sucks really bad.”
Akehurst told Cherwell, “It’s just a little irritating that internal pranking ended up sprawled all over student media! Still, all publicity is good publicity, they say.”
Current OUSU President Tom Rutland is pleased to see four candidates running. He said, “They’ve all got the opportunity to speak to thousands of students and convince them that they’re the best person for the job,” and said to Oxford students, “This is your chance to choose who represents you!”
