Is it Time to Ditch the Manifesto?

With the debut of the new candidates applying for Student Union roles, it would be hard to miss the manifestos. Each one promising different things, each one seeing different problems with the university’s current system. Sifting through the mountains of claims and complaints can seem really bothersome- and that doesn’t even change the fact that we often go into the electoral period knowing that a large amount of the things people write in their statement, they won’t be able to achieve. Be that for legal, logistical or personal problems, the manifesto almost definitively sets candidates up to fail in the comparison of the high standards they were voted in on. Other universities do it other ways, some even ditching the manifesto all together- is it time we change our ways?

I’ve spent the last few weeks looking at the other ways that student unions at different universities up and down the country represent themselves. This was a bit of escapism away from the confusion and posters that I know are going to show up in the next few weeks – telling people to vote for some and using increasingly strange mottos that use either bad rhyming or mention Longboi in order to be relatable to the general student populous.

To me, the student union appears to mirror that of our own government and political state; not because of the economic crash, but because it seems many students seem to know that the promises of those angling for power are unsubstantiated, and often neither achievable or creative. Are you really going to redo the entire bus system so they’re all electric, or just send a couple emails to ask the bus service to do it? How are you going to help students with the cost of living? Buy all the houses and make the city one big new college? Give everyone grants to buy food?  

But then those with reasonable, if not slightly unremarkable, manifestos are often called not ambitious enough- or lose out the flashier promises. Who cares if you want to fill potholes or improve recycling on campus? This other candidate wants to build a university rocket ship! There’s a likely chance neither candidate will get their petitions heard enough for action to take place, so let’s just vote for the one who sounds the most fun. 

At the University of Essex, the uni has what is referred to as The Big Plan – a set of things decided as most important by the previous year’s sabbs and the student body. This can include anything from things the sabbs didn’t fully complete the year before that still need to be done, or things that seem to be at the forefront of the collective worries for their academic future. This Big Plan is finalised and then students are chosen based on how they will execute these goals. All candidates are running for how effectively they can bring about the changes people have decided they wanted, not that that they’ve been told they need! It seems like this is a really good format- allowing people to feel that all of the student body is working towards a common goal, not many smaller goals with no understanding of how they will achieve them. 

There are so many ways of doing things – so many universities have completely different ways of grouping the sectors of student union responsibilities, but very few focus on the ability for those elected to achieve these goals. This undermines both the reliability of the sabbatical officers, and the general trust in the student union system as a whole. When we know some of the elected officials promises will never come to happen, is it any wonder that people take their trust out of the system altogether?