So last night, the candidates for this year’s Students Union elections were published on life. It should be an interesting bunch, with a few things much different from last year. For one, unlike last year where nearly all the positions had a single candidate, now nearly all have multiple candidates. The battle for the sabbaticals will be intense!

At 6pm this evening the Students’ Union Elections Returning Officer officially announced the candidates for next year’s elections. They are as follows:

President
Cillian Byrne
Alan Keegan
Conor Mortimer

Deputy President: Education and Welfare
Mark Egan
Leeanne Heneghan
John Murphy

Vice President: Campaigns and Information
Melanie Farrell
Andrew Harford
Alan McHale
Michael Mone

Clubs and Socs Officer
William Coyne

Equality Officer
Cara Murphy

Humanities and Social Sciences Convenor
Derwin Brennan
Dara McGann

Science and Health Convenor
John Devine
Jenny Quigley

Engineering and Computing Convenor
John Needham
Padraig O’Connor

Business Convenor
MD Sharif Hossain

Uh, huh. So as you can see, the three sabbatical positions of President, Vice and Deputy are hotly contested. Last year was nothing like this, with almost all the positions I can remember voting for being a simple Yes/No vote as to whether we wanted that person elected or not. Also, as I am (at least I think I still am) part of CA, then the only Convenor position I vote for is the Engineering and Computing one.

While I’m no pundit, here’s my view on the elections. Note, that most of these people I’m trying to figure out who they are only using a simple tool and their DCU student webspaces! Which means sweet feck all info!

President

First off, I only properly know one of the three candidates: Alan Keegan. Cillian Byrne is either the one from BSI4 or EPL3 – as such not a clue. Meanwhile Conor is from SSH4. Again, no idea.

Deputy Pres

Don’t know any of them. Mark is from CAIS2, which means I really should recognise them from the labs, if I actually hung around there… Leeanne from BNID3 and John could be one of eleven people, so safe to say I haven’t a clue.

Vice Pres

Andrew Harford, aka receive. Melanie (CS3), Alan (MMA4) and Michael (CAIS4) have not the foggiest of clues.

C&S

William Coyne (PEB2). I’m sorry, who?

Equality

Cara Murphy (CCS1). Again, who? Also, a first year going for the SU – now that’s interesting…

Eng + Comp

This will be a tough battle. Both John and Padraig are well known (from what I can tell) by most of the CA students. John is a former class rep (he probably still is!), while Padraig formerly held the Convenor position, I think two years ago, and has gone for it ever since. Plus he’s in charge of the Mezz. It should be a clash of the titans!

I’m not sure if I want to give my views on who to vote for, mainly because they would obviously be biased due to the fact I know very few people. At the very least just vote for Alan and Andrew! And toss a coin for Eng+Comp!