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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 15. 1972

Democracy Saved In Student Elections Your Level Headed Voting Keeps The Flag Flying !!$$

page 5

Democracy Saved In Student Elections Your Level Headed Voting Keeps The Flag Flying !!$$

Representative democracy has been saved. Like the atom bomb the humble tomato has been revealed as a paper tiger. The Seamen's Union elections of 1972 struck the first mighty blow against anarchy. Now Victoria University students have struck the second, with the greatest show of responsibility since student scabbing helped Winston Churchill save the British constitution during the General Strike of 1926.

Some may say that last week's by-electors showed that students displayed as much of a sense of humour as Keith Locke would at Trotsky's graveside. So did the candidates. The irresponsible on campus are now saying that Sir Alec Douglas-Home or Dan Riddiford would have displayed more frivolity if they had stood, despite heroic attempts by Fiona McAlpine, John Underwood and La.

The authors of the smear sheet "Sullient" (who were arrested last night) were as impotent as King Canute before the tide of Mike McKinley's victory. The cynics thought the fall of the Singapore base in 1942 meant the end of New Zealand's projection by the Royal Navy. Mike's election has thrown their innuendos back in their faces. [unclear: First] Martin, now Mike McKinley. These heroic sailors now stand as the frontline defence of parliamentary democracy, in a coalition as broad as the July 14 Mobilisation Committee. However the fact that Mike only polled 529 votes against 434 for a wog, 409 for a micky doolan and 253 for Professor Liley's stand in shows how perilously close we were to seeing the sun finally set over the Empire. Political science students might remark that Mike didn't even get a third of the votes cast. Disregard their smears, Mike, President Thieu didn't do much better than that in his first run for office.

Of course Mike had a bit of opposition and a tougher battle than Peta Boshier, whose effective opposition, like Thieu's, was disqualified. With as much chance of losing as Enver Hoxha in the Albanian presidency, Boshier romped home as Publications Officer. As "Sullient" said, neither Boshier or his opponents could tell a printing press from a washing machine, but after all Enver Hoxha couldn't tell a proletarian from a peasant in 1945. He learnt, so will Boshier.

However many snide remarks you can make about McKinley and Boshier's elections, their success means that the good burghers of Wellington will sleep easier in their beds in future and no longer tremble and sweat as they read the "Sports Post." Boshier is against violence in demonstrations because it infringes other people's rights and privileges. Although he sometimes sounds like a watered-down Listener editorial, that sort of analysis clearly qualifies Peter Boshier as the successor to Edmund Burke as the leading philosopher of conservatism. Mike McKinley on the other hand doesn't protest because he thinks its ineffective, rather like a secretary of a certain Labour Party organisation in the Hutt Valley who never called meetings because nobody would turn up. Undoubtedly any protest Boshier and McKinley have anything to do with in the future will be both ineffective and non-violent. Radical students can be sure that before either of them advance to higher office in the Students Association Big Norm will snaffle them for his Cabinet - birds of a feather..

Despite the election of two conservatives, the backwoodsmen of the local bourgeoisie will be gnashing their teeth over the election of Don Carson and Pierre Maru. In the contest for Sports Officer John Mowbray went down yet again, his policies buried under me weight of an over flowing cupboard of skeletons and decaying corpses. John should reexamine his reasons for standing. Intelligent capitalists never stand for office, they let their stooges and pup pets do it for them. Even the bumptious boss of the Student Anti-war movement, Alick Shaw realised that. The anti-war movement secretary, Don Carson, stood for Sports Officer and beat Mowbray in a contest Shaw would have undoubtedly failed. Its a sad day when unsuccessful Labour Party candidate can successfully out think an honest businessman in the tactics of political manipulation. It is rumoured that Mowbray's head will be on the block at the Wellington Chamber of Commerce.

The businessmen will be asking Mowbray why he didn't stand for Cultural Affairs Officer, after all PBEC's cultural isn't it? Even John could have beaten the odd collection of a Bach-lover, a God-botherer, a Mul-doon hater and a Greek offsider for Spiro Agnew that Pierre Maru defeated.

So, sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie, you can now write back to Eketahuna and Wanganui and tell Mum and Dad they can sleep easily again. When students join seamen in the fore front of the fight to defend the Magna Carta against the atavistic Bolshevik hordes, Anglo Saxon democracy must be safe. The tomato is indeed a paper tiger.