By Lachlan Malloch
SYDNEY — Left-wing student activists narrowly lost the Macquarie University Students' Council (MUSC) elections held on October 27-29.
Ten votes and one councillor were all that separated the left and right factions after counting. This represented a gain for the left, which has been locked out of the formal decision-making processes by the right-wing bloc — the Labor right and Liberal Party students — for the last two years.
The left won the editorship of the student newspaper Arena. The progressive women's ticket, Blue Stockings, also won leadership of the women's department.
The gains by the left were against a backdrop of dirty tricks employed by the MUSC executive.
Andrew Gibson, MUSC councillor and a member of Left Alliance, told Green Left Weekly the extraordinary story of the undemocratic — and ultimately illegal — way in which MUSC has been operating.
Several months ago the MUSC executive, in collaboration with the vice-chancellor and registrar, changed the electoral regulations of the MUSC constitution. This was unconstitutional and carried out without consultation with, or ratification by, MUSC.
The changes improved the right wing's electoral chances by introducing "above the line" voting. Under this system, students do not know where a candidate's preferences are flowing.
Limits on how much students' council money can be spent on councillors' election campaigns were also removed.
Gibson noted the success of the Broad Left in exposing the right's abuse of the political process to the student population.
A political ally of the right was appointed returning officer without any opportunity for the left to nominate alternatives.
He closed nominations on the last day of term, with the elections to be held on the first day back after holidays, October 13. This meant there would be no real election campaign.
The returning officer was never available for consultation by left activists during the official campaign period, whereas right-wing students had his home phone number.
The returning officer censored much of the left's policy statements in the official election broadsheet on the grounds that they were defamatory to his political allies.
An independent arbiter was called in, who upheld the left's complaints and ruled that the elections should be postponed until October 27 and a new, uncensored broadsheet be produced. Although the returning officer agreed to this, the MUSC executive decided to proceed with the election.
As polling began on October 13, the Broad Left launched a "Stop the rot, stop the rorts, don't vote" boycott campaign. Meanwhile, a Supreme Court injunction was sought to stop polling.
Gibson described the situation as "martial law voting" because university management had employed security guards to patrol the polling areas.
Although the Non-Aligned Left are part of the Broad Left, they did not abide by its collective decision to boycott the elections.
The Supreme Court upheld the left's complaints, and new elections were called. But Gibson laments that the students will have to pay for the right's opportunist games.
"MUSC's scheduled $18,000 election budget has blown out to $40,000. The MUSC executive bailed out their mate by withdrawing $10,000 of students' money to pay for legal fees which would never have been necessary if democratic processes had been observed", he said.