The Union re-poll due to take place at the end of 2nd week following presidential candidate Krishna Omkar’s disqualification by an election tribunal has been plunged into turmoil after the Returning Officer received no valid nominations.
The unprecedented situation has forced Alex Priest, the current Returning Officer, to issue an interpretation and ruling on how the Union will now proceed, as there are no rules specifically covering this outcome.
In what appears to be an attempt to avoid suggestions of undemocratic handling of the elections, the Returning Officer’s ruling has gone contrary to what had been expected by those close to the Union and what had been reported in the press.
The original tribunal hearing disqualified Krishna Omkar from last term’s overturned Union presidential election, and forbade him from running in any subsequent Union elections.
The tribunal board directed that a re-poll for the position of President should be held, and laid down criteria for eligibility, namely that those eligible to run for President at the original election, except Krishna Omkar, would be eligible to run in the re-poll.
Charlotte Fischer and Claire Hennessey, who was Secretary in Michaelmas, were both eligible to be nominated under the criteria. However, Fischer resigned from Standing Committee on Monday of 1st week, citing sexual harassment from committee members and “personal attacks”.
As Cherwell24 has now learned, Hennessey has not stepped forward to run, leaving no nominations for election.
In the absence of nominations, it was expected that current Librarian Ed Waldegrave would assume the presidency for Trinity Term, with the subsequent elevation of officers below him.
However, the Returning Officer has instead directed that the re-poll be deemed to have not occurred, and so another poll will be held, with nominations closing Friday of 3rd week.
To ensure a contested election, the eligibility criteria have been relaxed so that more candidates are able to be nominated. Cherwell24 is aware of at least six potentially eligible candidates.
In the interpretation and ruling, the Returning Officer notes that, “The democratic election of Officers – especially that for the Office of President – is a fundamental principle which underpins all for which this Society stands.”
He goes on to state that he believes that the ruling is in the “best interests of [the] Society and its members.”
Sources close to the Union have told Cherwell24 that elements within the Union had “exerted extreme pressure” on the Returning Officer to avoid holding another poll and instead appoint Ed Waldegrave as President for Trinity Term. However, when contacted, the Returning Officer was unable to comment.
It is, however, understood that the original tribunal and appellate board chairmen, as well as several other senior figures within the Union, were in favour of a democratic solution.
Nominations for the poll open Friday of 2nd week and close 3pm Friday of 3rd week. Presidential elections for Michaelmas term are still scheduled to take place in 7th week this term.
Great Novels: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
Disgrace is a novel rich in symbolism and undertones which address its postcolonial message. The novel focuses on the political conflict rife in post-Apartheid South Africa, as the country struggles to adapt to a world after almost fifty years of racial segregation. The power balance in the country is shifting, and the novel’s protagonist, David Lurie, finds himself struggling with the unhappy realization that political change cannot eradicate human misery; that in some cases, it can exacerbate it. A proud womanizer, Lurie loses his job as a professor in Cape Town after an impulsive affair with a student, and goes to stay with his daughter Lucy for a while in rural South Africa. He cannot comprehend the post-Apartheid world that Lucy lives in, and remains nostalgically concerned with “the old days”. At one point Lucy snaps: “Wake up, David. This is the country. This is Africa”. In the country, a chain of events occur which alters their lives forever, causing Lurie to question almost every aspect of his existence. Coetzee’s novel opens the reader’s eyes to the more subtle problems inherent in a post-Apartheid world, the problems lying beneath the surface, which reside within the mindsets of individuals such as Lurie.
The style of the novel is sparse and concise; like a poem, it reads as if Coetzee has carefully considered the value of every word on the page, and ensured each was truly necessary before committing it to print. The beauty of Disgrace is its ability to link personal identity to wider political conflicts through its use of symbolism and metonymy. Lurie himself is representative of the post-Apartheid confusion in Africa as he constantly wavers in his actions, lacking direction and purpose. His affair with his student is described as “not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless”. Lurie’s treatment of women throughout Disgrace has parallels with the treatment of black South Africans by colonial powers: there is an important comment made by Lucy in which she likens rape to murder, focusing on the symbol of a knife. This is just one of the many examples of sentences and words that resonate throughout the novel, possessing significance as structures in themselves, but also as methods of enforcing the novel’s wider themes and messages. Every one of Lurie’s comments is revealing not only of his personal state, but of the state of the world he inhabits: he muses, “Italian and French will not save him here in darkest Africa”, indicative of the division between North and South Africa. The horrific events experienced by David and Lucy in the country epitomise, in microcosm, the disastrous consequences of such a division. Reading Disgrace is like stopping at an endless series of crossroads, such is the wealth of undertones that greets the reader at every sentence. This is a truly fascinating novel, which raises many more questions than it answers, and even on the fourth read will cause you to consider something new.
by Elly McCausland