Gemma Tumelty Elected President of National Union of Students of the United Kingdom

So in case you thought Canadian student politics was too factionalized...

In the United Kingdom, the National Union of Students is so influential that the Guardian publishes a series of articles on their recent elections. For 2006, there were seven candidates for President of NUS UK, three running with slates and four running indepentently. Of these, a few were running purely as protest candidates, such as the Marxist Daniel Randall or the young Conservative Dan Large. But two candidates stood out from the crowd: Pav Akhtar and Gemma Tumelty.

Gemma Tumelty, outgoing National Secretary of NUS, ran with the support of the oxymoronic student group "Organised Independents." The Organised Independents (OIs) are a centrist faction that operate within the National Union of Students. In the past they operated in cooperation with Labour Students, the youth wing of the Labour Party that also runs candidates in NUS elections. This is not surprising, given the fact that many OIs are, in fact, members of the Labour Party themselves (though not officially supported in NUS elections).

Pav Akhtar, outgoing Black Students' Officer of NUS, ran as an independent. You can have a look at his election platform by checking out his campaign website (yes, NUS candidates have websites...). He was generally considered to be the more left-wing of the two main candidates. According to this blog, Mr. Akhtar ran with the support of the Student Broad Left.

In the end, Gemma Tumelty was elected President. For more information on the election, which has been extensively covered in both the national and student media, check out these articles/posts:

• Adding their voice to the debate: Has better organisation or extremism made Islamic groups the biggest faction in student politics? (The Guardian)
• They might have won the battle: Gemma Tumelty, the new NUS president, is determined to turn the union around and keep up the fight against fees, she tells Alexandra Smith (The Guardian)
• Leader's Time-Wasting Tactics (Socialist Students faction)
• Mayor of London accused of interfering in NUS elections
• Jo Salmon's post on the next NUS President
  
• NUS Conference (perspective from a Conservative delegate)

Now, all this raises the obvious question: why aren't we seeing anywhere near the same open debate concerning the direction of Canada's student political groupings? Whether it's CFS or CASA, one gets the distinct impression that this sort of democracy in action simply doesn't happen here in Canada.