Election committee decides to ban sabbaticals from participating three days before campaign

A last-minute amendment to Elections Week rules could potentially jeopardise one team’s campaign by not allowing sabbaticals to participate.

A sabbatical has been banned from participating or supporting any of this year’s candidates’ campaigns, two of which he was supposed to be involved in. Pat Mathewson, Association President, is also affected by this new rule.

This last-minute U-turn could significantly impact one team’s campaign, as the sabbatical is in the campaign photos, videos and was supposed to be managing the campaign. The amendment, some have argued, is in fact personally targeted at one of the candidates.

Some argue that the sabbaticl should not be denied the right to support a campaign merely for the fact that he is a sabbatical. He is still studying at this university, graduating at the end of next academic year, and to make the matter worse, the sabbaticals were informed that they would be permitted to participate in the campaigns only three days before they changed their mind.

A petition has been instigated by someone who believes that this ludicrous decision is: “an infringement on the principle of freedom of expression.”

His petition has 195 signatures and counting. Not only is this controversial decision unfair on the sabbaticals and the campaign teams affected, it also makes us the first university to apply this rule, breaching one’s freedom of speech in Elections Week, as he argues.

The sabbatical will be the only student in his year to be denied the opportunity to express who he would want to represent the student body next year.

He said: “[The Union] has decided – less than a week before elections – not to allow every student in good standing the right to have a voice on their representation. This is not student representation.”

The Elections Committee have requested the petition to be taken down.