We’ll Tell Jew How To Vote

• Nottingham Jewish and Israel Society tells members who to vote for.
• JSoc then claim they make no endorsements.
• Anil Parmar knew nothing of endorsement.

With voting for the 2013 SU Exec elections due to close within the next 24 hours, it has emerged that a number of candidates have secured the backing of Nottingham’s Jewish and Israel Society.

Evidently everyone is trying to get the most publicity they can for their campaign: coloured t-shirts all over campus, confectionary giveaways within 100m of Hallward and more profile picture changes than you could shake a stick at.

But with the disappearance of rules this year, some candidates have secured the backing of big societies as voting power. This weekend, the Nottingham Jewish and Israel Society sent out a Facebook message informing members that they had done research on their behalf and come up with a comprehensive list of who to vote for.

The original message outlining who to vote for…

It is unclear whether these are mere recommendations or not, but other candidates may feel slighted that they will not be considered by such a large society, with the official figures standing at 800+.

Anil Parmar, the current finance officer who JSoc indicated should receive their members’ vote for President, said he knew nothing of the situation. When told he was being endorsed he replied, “….Really? Wow I had no idea…That’s really odd!”

Clueless but not jewless

“I’ve worked with a lot of societies in general over the past year but I’ve not worked with them on a one on one basis. As long as they are voting for candidates because they feel they can bring change then that’s fine but I’m not a fan of voting for candidates simply because they are your mate.”

The reasons for JSoc supporting these candidates was never made clear. However, having realised how the message might be perceived, an apology was sent out on behalf of the JSoc by a member of the society.

They set out in no uncertain terms that whilst the candidates should be taken into account, it was “insensitive to tell you who to vote for” and that JSOC no longer makes any endorsements. This made far less convincing by a charming image of him and candidate for education officer Dasha Karzunina set as his profile picture.

The candidate endorsed by Jsoc for the position of Accommodation & Community officer, Jacques Domican-Bird, strictly stated that he knew nothing about this in response to our questions:

“I know no one in the society and I knew nothing about this till you’ve just told me.”

The Electoral committee said that they “allowed societies to endorse candidates this year” on the basis that it had “happened in the past even though it was against election rules.”

They claimed that the idea was to promote negotiation culture, whereby candidates would trade off policies for votes.