Chaos at election of new Executive Editor

by Pria Bakhshi on 16 Mar 2010 in News

Lack of organisation at the Collective meeting last Wednesday meant that elections for the Beaver’s Executive Editor for the next academic year did not take place as planned.

The Collective, the governing body of The Beaver, was set to elect a new Executive Editor of this paper. But the meeting was cut short because the meeting room was only booked for one hour, and someone from the next group interrupted the meeting to urge the meeting to close.

Candidates’ question times were cut short, and in the rush, only seventeen votes were cast but names were not marked off. The LSESU Returning Officer Shanti Kelemen then declared that she would not verify the results. This confusion rendered the entire election unconstitutional.

In a subsequent email to members, Collective Chair Cilu Mathew apologised personally for the disarray, saying: “I accept full responsibility for what happened and hope this will not reflect badly on the paper.”

She called for an emergency Collective meeting the day after to hold the elections again. But Kelemen and some members Students’ Union Executive objected, citing constitution rules that states Beaver elections must be called at least a week in advance. They also believed that the Collective should be informed of the meeting more than 24 hours in
advance.

The Beaver Constitution states that the executive editor elections are to be overseen by the LSESU Returning Officer.

The Beaver could choose between conducting the vote online which was suggested by Kelemen, and holding another meeting this week.

Mathew explained that, “due to the potential of abuse with a system of online voting” it was decided by her, “ex-returning officers, the executive editor, and other members of the editorial board” to go for the latter.

Further, an appeal was made to the LSESU Executive last Thursday, who subsequently decided that a meeting could be called for, as only the elections of positions need to be announced a week before.

The elections were held last night. At the time of print, the results of the elections are still unknown.

Related posts:

  1. Election reform defeated amid Union General Meeting chaos
  2. Letters to the Editor – 09/03/10
  3. Election candidates stake claims to Union office
  4. How close exactly? Post-election analysis
  5. The Beaver’s Online Election Coverage

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 08:07 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Jason

    I really wouldnt be surprised if Aled (LSE SU General Secretary) was behind this. He came into LSE dead set on destroying our Union. All someone needs to do now is kick Lady Fisher out i.e. piss off we dont want you anymore.

  • H

    Haha Jason. All his possessions should be chucked out in black bin bags when he leaves. Surely must be LSE’s most hated Gen Sec ever.

  • J

    This still doesn’t match the election of that fucking thief -Nikhil Adhia to the trustee committee. That tit head stole £3000 from the holborn committee. He is fuckin lier and a fraud. That corrupt bastard is going to be the one to destroy the student union.

  • funny – no?

    i have respect for any person willing to call someone a “fuckin lier” as well as a “fraud.” looks as though some slimy piece’s of shit (POS) are running around causing problems in academia, no? just wait till these scumbags get jobs in the corporate world, if you think 3k is bad. some names you just can’t trust, i think that should be obvious by now, unless of course, you’re completely stupid/naive. screw the corrupt, may they fail & go to hell!!!

  • H

    Where is your evidence that he stole £3000 – if anything through working with him, he was a fantastic President and really gave it his all in arranging events for the hall.

    If you have a personal quip with him, so be it but if you have no evidence to base your facts, I suggest you be careful in making such accusations. If you want to make such claims, perhaps sign your real name off rather than the first letter you saw on your keyboard. Given your apparent lack of intelligence, I take that it must have been effort to even type full sentences.

    I’d be interested to see any evidence you have to that claim given that I was part of this team and oversaw the accounts which have been verified by the committee at High Holborn as they publically published their accounts and this was overseen by the warden, Paul Kelly every term. Given that the committee only get £12, 000 per year – don’t make such suggestions that 25% would magically disappear given that that the hall actually raised money for charity outside of the given budget.

    Given that you were not part of the committee as only the staff and selected individuals had access to the accounts (which requires TWO signatories which would have been Nikhil and another staff/team member) and anything over £500 requires staff approval, you have no evidence to base this on as it never happened. Money was also passed to the new committee this year.

    I’d suggest you be more careful when posting baseless accusations.