Halfway through voting, we’ve decided to show you how the race for Sabbatical positions is shaping up before the official results are announced on Friday night.
We recently published a series of interviews with the candidates for each Sabb role with polls to see how you were voting, reaching almost 1,000 votes between the seven positions. Last year we only got four out of seven right (Unless you count prolific re-runner Anjit), and this year there are even more hotly contested positions.
Union President
For Union President, Ben Franklin looks nailed on to win, securing an overwhelming majority in our polls.
VP Sports Development
VP Sports Development is possibly the hardest race to predict in the entire election, with Jamie Wilson taking a very small lead over the other three candidates.
VP Welfare
Incumbent Equality & Diversity Officer Sam Bailey has taken a resounding lead over the other two candidates, and looks set to be next year’s VP Welfare.
VP DCI
For VP DCI, Kerry Sclater holds a significant lead over her competitor.
VP Education
Lone candidate Shruti Verma leads RON by just one vote in our public poll.
VP Student Communities
Veteran campaign-runner Anjit Aulakh leads the way for VP Student Communities.
VP Engagement
Jenny Bortoluzzi has a strong lead for VP Engagement.
Think our polls got it all wrong? Let us know in the comments, and find out the official results on Friday night!
Worst line up for Sabbs in recent SUSU history
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Who are you referring to specifically? For most of the roles there are some really good candidates with proper experience in SUSU for a change and some pretty decent manifestos.
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I liked this just for the commenter’s name.
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These are not technically “exit polls”, they are just polls. If this was a serious election I’d say that was a significant difference. But since this election is actually just a popularity contest, it may not matter.
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Don’t cut yourself on that edge
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Thanks for your concern, my risk assessment was approved by the faculty.
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These polls represent significantly fewer people than who are actually going to vote, and I expect some people voted on the poll multiple times on multiple devices – don’t count the chickens yet.
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tbh this year has fewer strikingly obvious clowns than usual, I’m trying to find someone who stands out as a shitter but eh they’re all alright
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The SUSU clique remains strong.
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I love that this critique is levied every year, despite the folk involved in the union changing radically with each fresh intake of students.
Aside from noting that some of the candidates have been really involved in their area of interest/society, not sure how this group is exactly perpetuating the clique.
Still, haters gonna hate.
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I’ve never fully understood this viewpoint. Of course, people who were part-time officers end up running for full-time (well…except some of us) because they tend to have the experience and expertise. You end up being friendly with each other, as you inevitably end up at a lot of the same events and you tend to bond a lot with others over elections.
So yeah, it looks like nepotism. Except, of course, all positions are balloted for in a cross-campus election, so anyone could stand and build a campaign team and win. And actually, they would stand a solid chance as anti-clique brigade would probably vote for outliers.
I’m glad to see that I warrant constant name-dropping in this comment, though, anon.
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Does being friends because they work a lot together and have got to know each other (just like you and your coursemates/society mates) necessarily equate to a ‘clique’ ?! Because if so I have a pretty big clique back home, please don’t attack them!
From what I hear, most of the candidates are in each other’s campaign teams
Also pretty sure Shruti is definitely not best friends with Sophia…
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Emily?
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…what?
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People with relevant experience running for sabbatical positions! Well I never!
I agree with the vote no to susu campaign – let’s have more candidates even if they aren’t people who’ve shown sustained passion for susu and spent time getting to know what the job will entail. Gotta love the hate going round atm 😀
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Wouldn’t you just give up now if you were Sebastian?
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Sooooo post results – I think there’s a candidate here that all surprised us and deserves the recognition they are due despite not winning – and it certainly didn’t reflect these polls.
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