Reform candidates, the incumbent-led ticket in this year’s Guild election, were nowhere to be seen on campus on the final day of campaigning this week.
Reform is led by current Post Grad Officer and President-elect Aaron Bui, and campaign managed by current President Aamna Asif.
This comes after multiple Reform candidates supported a motion at the Student Representative Council to expand campaigning to be allowed over two weeks on campus. Glass has been unable to confirm why the two full weeks of campaigning did not go ahead. Candidates were given four full days to campaign on campus this election period.
When asked what they thought of Reform not showing up for the last day of campaigning, Left Action campaign manager and Enviro Officer candidate Isabella Foley said she thought the move was “really shameful”.
“They’ve won a bunch of positions uncontested, so I think it shows that they’re confident that they don’t have to come out and try to convince students of what their political ideas are and what their strategy is for the student union.”
“I think it’s also reflective of the the fact that they don’t want to have to contest us (Left Action) and they don’t like when we contest them – which is the entire premise of student elections, that there are different groups with different perspectives…and to win an election you have to convince the student body of your different ideas.”
“[I think] they don’t actually want to have to try to talk to students, because they don’t have relatable left wing things to say to students.”
As it stands, Reform have been elected unopposed to 11 SRC positions, meaning the ticket only needs to win one more position at the election to have a majority at Council.
Reform has 20 candidates currently in the race or already elected unopposed, none of whom turned up to campaign on Thursday. At the time of publication, the ticket has also done very little online campaigning on its Facebook page compared to rival ticket Left Action.
This comes after the Guild’s worst election participation in recent memory last year, where only 351 out of approximately 52,000 QUT students voted.
It beggars belief that any ticket, especially an incumbent ticket, would forgo an opportunity like campaign week to strengthen student unionism at QUT and convince students why they should care about the Guild.
Reform did not respond to Glass‘ request for comment.
