Hustings for this year’s Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) elections will take place tomorrow at 5.30pm.
In an email sent at close to 9.30pm tonight, the GSU’s electoral commission announced the time, saying that “the postgraduate community is invited to meet the three candidates running in this year’s election on Friday June 4th 17:30-18:30PM and you are invited to attend”.
Students have until 3.30pm tomorrow to submit questions to the oversight officer to be asked at the hustings.
The electoral commission also said that “candidates will get three minutes each as an opening speech to the electorate and then two minutes thereafter each to answer each postgraduate query”.
Voting will take place from June 9th to 11th. Results will be announced on June 12th.
Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) President Gisèle Scanlon is running for re-election against former GSU Executive member John Tighe.
Incumbent Vice President Abhisweta Bhattarcharjee is running unopposed to retain her role.
Tighe saw a significant boost to his campaign tonight, after the TCD Postgraduate Workers Alliance – an influential postgraduate lobbying group in Trinity – endorsed him in the presidential race.
In a press statement, the alliance said: “The group believes that the TCD GSU is in an existential crisis and for Gisele Scanlon to serve another term as president could have devastating consequences for both TCD postgraduates and the union.”
“John Tighe has committed to upholding the mandate of the TCD PGWA in the TCD GSU and supports the national campaign for postgraduate workers’ rights.”
“He will work with the group in furthering the cause both on campus and nationally.”
The union has had difficulties running elections and votes this year. At a chaotic EGM held last month, the union used a voting system that did not verify whether those using it were actually entitled to vote. Several attendees reported that they were unable to vote, while others said that the voting link allowed users to vote several times.
The union also courted controversy in the running of its class representative elections last year. The voting system used – called Qualtrics – allowed students who had access to a link to vote anonymously in the elections as many times as they wished.
The GSU will use Mi-Voice as its voting system for the sabbatical elections.
