Sabb Officer under fire for elections misconduct

Seven official complaints have been made against a current sabbatical officer ’13/14 concerning their behaviour during the elections, which could lead to the Officer’s suspension or even being fired from their post.

The complaints made by seven individuals surround four or five separate incidents of misconduct during the voting period.

The misconduct includes rude and inappropriate comments made towards the opposing candidate’s campaign team, negative campaigning against the other candidate, and tweets on the individual’s personal account, all of which breaks AUSA’s constitution concerning election rules.

2013/14 Exec Committee

Under Section 7, the constitution states that:

“7.1 Candidates may criticise only the policies of another candidate that have appeared in the campaign, but not the persona of another candidate.

7.3 Candidates shall in no way attempt to undermine the fair and democratic running of the election.”

Interestingly, 7.4 also states that, “Candidates shall be responsible for the conduct of those campaigning on their behalf.” This could have serious implications on the current committee that were elected only last night, as the candidates were warned in candidate meetings prior to elections that such behaviour would lead to disqualification.

It has been made clear to The Tab that the submitted complaints are not to overturn the electing of any candidates. Instead, the worry is that such behaviour would have been allowed to go unnoticed and unpunished because of the individuals standing within AUSA.

A huge concern by many involved in the elections is that the individual in question not only broke election rules campaigning, but did so whilst in a democratically elected position by the student body, a position that holds a lot of influence during elections.

As per the constitution, The Trustee Board must now “satisfy themselves that a disciplinary hearing via a Discipline committee ought to be convened; or dismiss the complaint.”

New Sabb Committee at results party

This seems to be just the beginning of the controversy surrounding this year’s elections. The elections committee this year have decided to rewrite the constitution concerning the election rules due to the amount of ‘slating’ that was apparent this year.

Slating is when candidates join forces and promote each other in a bid to win a higher number of votes. Whilst this is normal on the street during election time, the amount of slating that went on on Facebook this year has been labelled “propaganda” by some involved in the elections.

Hopefully, the new constitution will clarify slating, in that candidates and campaign teams will not be allowed to publicly endorse one another on social media sites. However, the committee did try and police it this year, asking candidates to remove photos of themselves endorsing other candidates, but some chose to ignore the committee’s request.

Until the Discipline Committee convenes, The Tab has decided not to disclose the identity of the Sabb Officer in question.