Bruins United took home an overwhelming victory Thursday, but with this shift in power comes the responsibility to follow through with its campaign promise for a fair, accountable and meritocratic council.
Students First! won only two of the contested positions for the Undergraduate Students Association Council ““ general representative 3 and Cultural Affairs commissioner ““ making for the largest Bruins United presence on council ever.
Bruins United campaigned with the promise to make council appointments fair and accessible, basing the selections on merit, not on political allegiances.
The slate holds this position after what they saw as years of council favoritism in appointments carried out by Students First! and its predecessors.
Now the ball is in Bruins United’s court. The onus is on the newly elected representatives to commit themselves to this creed of fairness and equality in USAC appointments.
If Bruins United goes back on their promises and show themselves to be biased and unfair in their selections, their credibility will be shot.
Students will not stand for a new favoritism in place of the familiar Students First! version. Disaffection for the old hierarchy was one of the primary reasons Bruins United was founded two years ago.
Many have shown that they want real change in their student government, and Bruins United should recognize their responsibility in this respect.
But apart from the fact that Bruins United gave campaign promises to make council fair, accountable and responsive to all students, there is another important reason to maintain equality on council.
With the resounding victory, it would be easy to view the Bruins United dominance as a message that students agree with the slate’s platforms and goals wholeheartedly.
But, upon further inspection, the raw numbers which determined the elections spell out a very different message.
Most races were decided by only a few hundred votes, which certainly does not indicate a mandate by the student body.
The largest margin between candidates, a nearly 9 percent spread by which Gabe Rose beat out Students First! candidate Greg Cendana for the presidency, looks like a comparative landslide ““ but represents a victory by only 624 votes.
The real message is not one of unwavering support of Bruins United. The new councilmembers are there to represent all undergraduates, and since nearly half of voters support the goals of Students First!, to ignore their wishes and proceed with only the Bruins United agenda would be a disservice to the student body.
What is unequivocally clear is that voters are extremely divided, and Bruins United will have the best ability to find a solution to this deep division.
As the results show, not all students support a bar on campus, Concerts for Cash or diverting money away from diversity efforts in favor of more local problems. Councilmembers should take the needs of every student into account ““ not shut out beliefs that are not their own.
Of course, Students First! must also be collaborative partners in this process, putting forth strong leaders to work with their former opponents, for the benefit of all students.
In the end, Bruins United must hold to their word and find the best candidates for council appointments and in staffing their individual offices, preventing slate affiliation from coloring their selections. They owe it to students.