Aram Ghoogasian: Council’s unity, success now in hands of new executives

After about a week of drowning in fliers, slogans and smear campaigns, the makeup of next year’s Undergraduate Students Association Council was finally announced – and it looks strikingly familiar.

The council once again consists of a LET’S ACT! president leading a Bruins United plurality.

But with a similar makeup to this year’s council, next year’s council has a useful example of how to improve the atmosphere of student government. The current council’s term has been characterized by repeated conflicts along slate lines, a problem that the next council has a responsibility to solve.

As two offices that are particularly responsible for the internal operations of the council, the president and the internal vice president have the potential to set an entirely new tone for next year’s council.

Next year’s president, Devin Murphy, is President John Joanino’s chief of staff, while next year’s IVP, Avinoam Baral, is Internal Vice President Avi Oved’s chief of staff. Although the apple may not fall far from the USAC tree, Baral and Murphy will have the benefit of prior experience.

They’ve had an up-close view of how slate politics can damage the council. Since they worked in offices that cooperated less than perfectly together, they should be more aware than anyone of the importance of cooperation and compromise.

The contentious relationship between Joanino (a LET’S ACT! councilmember) and Oved (a Bruins United councilmember) has been a source of dissension for this year’s council, stalling progress on issues such as transparency, appointments and divestment.

Compromise between the two could have led to more palatable resolutions to big issues, such as the contentious appointment of Election Board Chair Anthony Padilla, who was approved late and with several dissenting voices on the council. The hasty appointment, opposed by Oved and other councilmembers, contributed to much of the problems of this year’s election.

Baral and Murphy need to recognize that they’re going to be looked at with a critical eye, both by other councilmembers and by their student constituents. They need to set an entirely new tone for the relationship between their offices and the council as a whole.

Their collaboration – or lack thereof – has the potential to set the standard for the entire council. If Baral and Murphy set aside slate politics, as they said they planned on doing after they won their respective elections, it could translate into a well-oiled governing body.

Clashes within USAC are inevitable but, instead of being purely antagonistic, these arguments can be productive, incorporating the best ideas from opposing sides.

The new councilmembers will have the benefit of having months between the ugliness that reached its peak Friday and the beginning of the fall quarter – a benefit not capitalized on by the current council. They need to make sure the kind of animosity that transpired during campaigning is held under control.

Baral said that he plans on contacting Murphy to initiate healthy collaboration from the get-go. Reaching out is a good start, but by no means is it a surefire way to create a cohesive council.

Talk is cheap, especially in USAC. Murphy and Baral – and the entire council more generally – can choose either to create an atmosphere where collaboration and productivity are the norm, or to perpetuate the atmosphere of their predecessors, where personal animosity drowned out real change. The fate of next year’s council is now out of the hands of voters, campaign managers and supporters shoving fliers in students’ faces.

Councilmembers should learn from the shortfalls of their predecessors and maintain a governing body that progresses toward a model of proper representation of the student body, a model this year’s USAC failed to achieve. 

The road to a more functional student government starts with Murphy and Baral, two of its new executives, and there should be no time wasted in working on what is bound to be a complex relationship.

Contact Ghoogasian at aghoogasian@media.ucla.edu or tweet him @AramsOpinions. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.

Published by Aram Ghoogasian

Aram Ghoogasian is an opinion columnist and a member of the Daily Bruin Editorial Board. He often opines about labor issues, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the University of California.

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