The A Better Carleton (ABC) slate won’t be running in this year’s Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) elections.
The purple-branded slate, led by Alexander Golovko from 2012-14, and Folarin Odunayo in 2014-15, enjoyed support from a variety of student groups on campus.
Year after year, ABC—which has been branded to the point of being a political party—ran on the kept promises of previous presidencies.
Each year, the opposing slates had to pull together a platform of promises without the luxury of years of history or name recognition.
This is good branding, but it isn’t fair student politics. Slates should have to campaign on equal footing each year and make new promises, not build off the successes of their predecessors.
Genesse Walker-Scace, a CUSA councillor representing public affairs and policy management, proposed the FAIR motion meant to curb this pattern of running year after year on the kept promises of a branded past slate. But since it failed, there is no guarentee this phenomenon of multi-year slates has ended completely.
Candidates should be elected purely on their merits and ideas—not by their connections to a political brand.
Creating a political legacy is against the spirit of student politics. This isn’t Parliament Hill, this is university. Student politicians should work to create a better Carleton, not a political dynasty.
