General Election: Student Union

First attempt of writing about politics, starting from the very basic institution, my college..

I see this whole week as a week of flyers, posters, emails, candies, and also promises!

There were flyers given away when you stepped out of the lecture theatre, at the café, anywhere u’d probably be..mentioning the posters hanging around the college, at the students areas in the hospital, in the library; it really brought me to remember my memories of being in a team of promoting a friend back in matriculation..we sneaked out at 2a.m to hang out posters that we made, some simple ones with cartoons and all (I think I keep one poster I made with me, at home maybe!) and we only finished around 4 in the morning..next day my tutorial mates (guys) told me that they saw us the nite before sneaking out to hang up the posters..kantoi! but it was worth it, she was elected for the students board! All sweats paid off..

Back to the original story, yeah I also received many emails from the teams that are competing, promoting themselves with photos and all, and what benefits they’ll bring to the students if they are elected for this year’s Student Union..all 3 teams went down to the theatre (turun padang, the common term in Malay), good strategy I say, they entered the lecture theatre before the lectures began, stealing 15 minutes of the time to give a powerpoint presentations of their missions of the year, how’d they being the Student Union can make your life in the school a better one (the candy part is when at the end of their presentation, they passed around some candies for the students..early bribe, but a pleasant one I guess) most promotes the same objectives, but came in many different ways of doing them; exam formats, exam fees, food in the canteen, cultural events, sports facilities, PRAYER ROOMS, toilets, STUDENT BAR, the intranet, those things students always complaining about, the list never ends..i wonder are these words to be kept or are they just passes of winning?

Here goes the 3 teams that are competing (I’m not mentioning any names for some purposes)

1. The Atlas Team

I would say this team stood up in all 3 groups the most. They have their official t-shirt that they wear during the campaigns, they put posters with their faces on it, and I think they are a better mixture when it comes to their level of institution..one already had a degree, two ppl in their fourth med, two in my class, others are from the 1st med and also pre-med.

Cons:
One candidate made a mistake of talking out loud in a bus how she doesn't like Malaysian performance during last year’s International Night that she puts it in between the other performances for this year’s event (she’s in the International Night’s committees)..usually they said our performance is the best, n they always put it the last one and we always got the standing ovations from the crowd out of it..it doesn’t really matters to me..i’m not involved in the performance or anything concerns with it, but clearly she has brought anger to the ppl who was involved with it, n she might lose a bunch of votes out of that..words have already been spread, and she’ll be regretting what she said later..she has created an environment of hatred towards herself from the very beginning (an irritating person I say)

The other one from my class, he’s a good guy I think, but my friends hate him for being boastful and acting like a real brilliant student in class by asking questions that are clearly advanced of the topics (yeah he’s the one with the degree)

From my P.O.V:
It’s good to have 2 Muslim representatives in this team, but the only problem is that are they really practice Islam as their way of life. Ppl told me that the one from the pre-med is a good guy, yeah I think he’s a very friendly guy that befriended most people from different backgrounds. And the one in the 4th med (gosh he’s cute!:P) looks like a very shy guy, seems pretty normal to me. but what matters most is, are these people able to carry out their tasks in fulfilling the needs of the Muslim students of this college (prayer room, halal food, etc). if they are, then it’s good. If they’re not, then the Muslims have clearly made a mistake of voting this team. (I dunno why my Arab friends keep telling me to vote for this team. What’d they see in them? This time it really goes paradoxically between them I think, not like the usual them like before, always opposing stuff like the college balls, class gatherings and all)

One thing is, I’ve got a feeling that this team is not the one that really matters how ‘minor’ people like the Malaysians feel, moreover our needs.

2. The A Team

This is quite a controversial team. No single white people in the team, can you believe it? What were they thinking when they were forming their team? I mean, clearly they won’t win the hearts of the Irish and most white people from US or Canada (yeah surely there’ll be some exceptions, I’m not saying all!). The candidate that’s competing for the president is my class’s former Representative (Class Rep in our First Med) and yeah he did a brilliant job being as one before. I guess he is expanding his wings and polishing his leadership ability in the run as the pres.

Cons:
Bad mixtures of candidates’ level of institution. Too many from the first med, one from the pre-med, the others from my class, the 3rd med. They are a bunch of great people, it’s just that if they can mix up the other people from the 4th med, that’d be better. The more experienced u are in a med school, the better usage people found u. also, less interesting campaigns compared to the atlas team, no fancy t-shirt and no fancy posters (but I like their posters saying that ‘We Speak Your Language’ which they do in many languages including Malay- yeah there’s one Malaysian candidate in this team, an Indian girl though). Other thing as I already said, no white representative, which is fine to me, but thinner their chance to win this election I guess.

From my P.O.V:
The one in the run for pres, he’s a Muslim guy. When he was our class rep, what I observed was he wasn’t really followed the religions’ rules. Whether he had to, due to the situational demands (u have to join most activities held in your class if u’re a class rep, even though attending the college ball and afterparty at some pubs, man u just have to mix around I guess!) or he did that intentionally, only God knows best. But in our second med, I happened to bump into him few times at the prayer room, and he was clearly a lot friendlier to the Malaysians compared to before. I’m not going to interpret how things going on in him, but I do hope if his team is picked, he will fulfil the needs of the Muslims here. Yeah there are 3 Muslims representatives in this team, but I’m not sure whether they are the practice ones. (have you ever wondered how responsibilities can change one’s faith? I always do!)

I do think this team will care about the needs of the minors, as most of them are coloured people. I dunno.

3. Team ‘With It”

This is the weird one, I’ve never seen most of their faces and I wonder where do they come from. Haha. Most are from the 4th med, and only one from my class and one from the school of pharmacy. I think it’s weird to vote for people that’s unfamiliar to u, don’t u think so? I don’t have much to talk on this team, though they seemed to have a good presentation (with smart looks and all), I don’t know a single person out of them and the one’s competing for pres is a woman. Outruled!

At the end of the day,

Most teams have the same main objectives
1. to make sure that the students have great (and fair) learning experiences
2. to make sure that the students have sufficient facilities and have fun throughout the course

So how do you decide when they all promised the fairly equal and same things?

My answer is, I would decide on the one that can fulfil and ease the life of a Muslim student here in this college, my life as a Muslim here. I don’t know bout others, maybe they have their own evaluation on things (like a friend of mine said ‘ikut masing2la nak pilih siapa, sendiri punya opinion!’). But when things are even now, it has come to personal reasons to be considered I guess, like religion and own needs. Whether this person I chose is the one that helps me to keep my prayer time on schedule by proposing a proper prayer room at the library, or whether this person is the one striving hard on doing charity works that would end up feeding the mouth of the Church people, u decide it!

And my vote? It’s for me to know and keep it as only mine.