|
Blog Feeds
Anti-Empire
Public InquiryInterested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Human Rights in IrelandA Blog About Human Rights
Spirit of Contradiction
| UCD election called off after cheating by President Aeonghus O Hourihane national | miscellaneous | news report  Friday March 01, 2002 21:02 by silo Following several attempts by the present UCD Student's Union President Aeonghus O Hourihane to influence the voting in the Student's Union Sabbatical Elections, the decision has been made by the returning officer to call the elections off. Following several attempts by the present UCD Student's Union President Aeonghus O Hourihane to influence the voting in the Student's Union Sabbatical Elections, the decision has been made by the returning officer to call off the election for the position of SU president and hold it again in three weeks. O Hourihane used his influence with certain UCD societies - most notably the C&E Society, dominated by the same Fianna-Fail-affiliated groups as elements in the Students' Union - to increase the amount of exposure he was getting on campus. This included the C&E having a spurious debate with a motion of 'That this house would re-elect Aeonghus O Hourihane', featuring large posters with a picture of O Hourihane. When this was brought to the attention of the returning officer, he confiscated the posters. O Hourihane's campaign team subsequently got the C&E to put up posters about O Hourihane's opponent in an attempt to force the returning officer to confiscate these as well, and this illegal act was the final act that resulted in the election being cancelled. O Hourihane is only one in a long line of Presidents of the UCD Students' Union to act illegally - his predecessor, Eamonn O Lionnain, removed the editorial and financial independence of the Students' Union paper, the University Observer, and subsequently illegally appointed approved candidates to editorial positions in contravention of both the Students' Union constitution and the wishes of the students as expressed in a referendum on the matter. O Hourihane also follows the tradition of being a member of Fianna Fail with previous incumbents. The presidents of the Students' Union for four of the last five years have been members of the Kevin Barry Cumann, the UCD Fiannna Fail branch. Apart from the Entertainments office and some incumbents of the Welfare office, all the sabbatical officers positions in the Union for the past decade have been filled by members of the main political parties - Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Fein. Proposals to make membership of the Students' Union voluntary for ordinary students, thus reducing the grip of the main parties on Union power, are regularly ignored or dismissed in Students' Union meetings. |
printable version
Digg this
del.icio.us
Furl
Reddit
Technorati
Facebook
Twitter
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6It wasn't only after the C&E put up posters with Dan Finn's name (Aonghus's rival), it wasnt even after members of Aonghus's campaign team threatend Dan + team, it wasnt after the poster ripping/manifesto destroying that happened again and again, nor after Aonghus errupted with the timeless statement of "this is a load of Socialist bullshit" in reply to a college journalist... but only after the head of the sports department started to hand out leaflets telling people to vote for Aonghus (in return Aonghus would have voted in favour of some controversial issues) Being actively involved in this campaign really showed me how desperate a man can get in order to swing an election.
I almost felt sorry for him.......
Note the word almost.....
The article is a bit off the mark. Eamon O'Lionnain is the only other Fianna Fail (KBC) president of UCD students union in recent years. Previous presidents, Carol Fahy, John Nisbet and Ian Walsh were politically independent but to various degrees had the backing of the right wing and establishment L&H.
Now in fairness to Eamon he wasn't as bad as Aengus. Eamon was known to actually do stuff like and he did take part in an occupation of the Customs House over the issue of grants last year.
Aengus in comparison has spent the year attacking his fellow officers without doing any real work on real student issues.
The rest of the elections did take place on Wednesday and they saw the KBC getting kicked out and they saw the heavy defeat of the KBC backed referendum to abolish the ents officer and replace the position with and ents manager. This defear showed that students want a union to fight for their interests not some sort of business.
Anyway in a few weeks students will have their cahnce in UCD to get the KBC out of the students union when the presidential election is rescheduled. Lets hope they decide to oust Aengus and the KBC and reclaim the union for students.
This shows the extent the careerist rump of the Union is will to go in order to assure their grip on power. Hourihane knew his campaign was destined for defeat, Dan Finn was putting in an excellent campaign and was winning over the students. At one of the hustings Hourihane was booed and jeered at for admiting to be a member of FF. He knew that his demise was on the cards.
An indication of the defeat that he probably would have recieved was when his referendum was overwhelmingly defeated, despite FF putting O'Lionnan in charge of the YES campaign. This referendum proposal would have aboloshed an elected position and replaced it with an unelected and unrepresentative manager. Even Ag Science, once a FF stronghold voted NO!
Róisín Tierney Crowe FF candidate for Education office was also humiliated at the polls, she was dumped out in the 1st count with the winner recieving nearly a third over the quota.
The writing on the wall for the KBC, students are beginning to kick out the careerist Fianna Fail. But we can't be complacent, The KBC will fight back. Students should vote No.1 for Dan Finn, and other genuine candidates in April to insure that the careerist are kept out of the union.
Then the fight for a democratic militant students' union can begin!!
some clarifications:
1. I did not have all the details at the time of posting the original story, I apologise for leaving out the other details (candidate names, incident invoilving sports centre etc.)
2. hairy activist said "Previous presidents, Carol Fahy, John Nisbet and Ian Walsh were politically independent but to various degrees had the backing of the right wing and establishment L&H." As far as I am aware, Carol Fahy and Ian Walshe were members of Labour and John Nisbet was a member of Fianna Fail.
3. hairy activist said "Now in fairness to Eamon he wasn't as bad as Aengus. Eamon was known to actually do stuff like and he did take part in an occupation of the Customs House over the issue of grants last year." Eamonn was the president who deliberately made sure that the independent students' union media (The University Observer) was run by favourable candidates in contravention of both the wishes of the students as expressed in a referendum and the letter of the law in the Students' Union constitution. He has done far more than any other president to deliberately make sure that students *don't* know what's being done in their name. For example, the referendum on an ents manager (which was defeated) had the backing of the union, who expected to win by simply not informing people of any of the issues. The 'no' campaign was essentially run by two concerned students with some mopney for photocopying.
Congrats to Paul Murphy, the rest of Socialist Youth and the others who campaigned for a No vote. If it wasn't for their hard work we'd be faced with a less democratic union.
I'd just like to add to some of the comments already made and in particular I think that Paul Murphy and his comrades did an excellent job in running the no campaign in UCD.
However just on the issue of political affiliation John Nisbet has never been a member of a political party, and Ian Walsh was and is not and never has been a member of the Labour Party to the best of my knowledge. Now I know that not everyone likes Labour but to say that Ian Walsh was a member is a bit harsh!
It is true that Carol Fahy was a member of UCD Labour, I don't think she was ever particularly active and all the Labour members that I knew at the time certainly didn't back her for president - Most of them voted for the socialist candidate Terry Connolly.
All the same its great to see the KBC losing their ground.