In the midst of the elections fray, I was informed of an interesting fact – UBC fraternities have real power now.

Normally fraternity members sink into obscurity in such elections, but this year they reigned supreme after three of them were elected to important positions.

Bijan Ahmadian, a member of Sigma Chi, is now a student representative to the UBC Board of Governors. He won in a landslide, garnering 1398 votes, and he now has the ear of UBC’s highest governing body.

Two Greeks have been elected to Senate. Azim Wazeer, a member of Phi Delta Theta, was a given to win a seat. He took 796 votes, just 30 votes shy of losing the race.

The real surprise here was Beta Theta Pi member Rob McLean, who came in second with 932 votes. That could be because he really mobilized himself on the final day of voting. He went so far as to be up at 8 a.m. to stick posters near every paper polling station he could find. He gets mad respect from me for going to that effort.

With two people on the board and two on senate, the Greek System has a chance to raise its concerns directly to both UBC’s highest governing body and its highest academic body. Fraternities have struggled a long time to gain respect at this school – as of last night, they’re a force to be reckoned with.

Jasmine Ramze, a radical writer for the Knoll and fervent supporter of Stefanie Ratjen, is the worst of them.

Ms. Ramze was the one who reminded Mr. Poritz of his four-year-old quote about women becoming “more obnoxious and less traditional.” A terrible quote, but I found the tactic as ethical as that of Irene Mathyssen denouncing James Moore in the House of Commons.

Ms. Ramze has also tried and failed to swing mud at the candidates for VP Academic. At a debate last week she got up and asked them how they feel about alleged military funding for UBC’s International Relations (IR) program. Gordon Hawkins, the president of its students’ association, had to clarify at the debate that the Department of National Defence in fact provides funding for the Liu Institute, not the IR program. A little research wouldn’t hurt, Ms. Ramze.

Ms. Ramze hit rock bottom this past week when she put up a Facebook group called “Freeman Poritz Watch” which derided him for being in a fraternity, enlisting in the Israeli military and being xenophobic, with nothing to support the latter claim. The group was registered under a different name and the fact of her creating it disappeared from her Facebook mini-feed. A dirty, cowardly act if I’ve ever seen one. Freeman was hurt bad enough already.

In the dying days of the election, Ms. Ratjen ought to dissociate herself from these pathetic tactics if she wants to doff the “scary liberal” moniker. Maybe she doesn’t want to. Maybe she’s happy to have these types on her team. But who really

wants them in the AMS?

Alex Lougheed seems to have the right idea for how to take it on. He promises an online academic grievances database that will allow students to log in and submit their complaints, whether it be an unfair test score, registration glitch or inadequate instruction by a professor or TA.

The complaint will then be peer-ranked and forwarded to an appropriate student representative, who will then pass it on to the University.

You may wonder why students wouldn’t bring their complaints directly to the University. It’s just not that easy.

I did my undergrad here in UBC’s Faculty of Arts, and if I had a problem I had to visit Arts Academic Advising. The only way I could get an appointment was if I showed up at 8 a.m., and then I’d be questioned as to why I was even there. I was once turned away after waiting for half an hour. I’d rather complain online any day.

I think this is an ingenious idea, and precisely the kind of pitch you want to make in a student election. It’s simple, easy to digest and outlines clearly the actions to which Lougheed will be bound if he’s elected. It’s much easier to swallow than cliched overtures about how candidates will combat student apathy (check out Rob McLean’s first answer.)

Then again, I’m equally compelled by the rigidity that the Fire Hydrant promises to bring to the position. No one can doubt its ability to stand firm against the administration.

That’s a trend I’m confident will end this year with Azim Wazeer, a very qualified candidate for Senate.

I’ve been a fraternity member since 2002 and I’ve seen many a fellow fratboy try and fail to win election. This time it could work. Mr. Wazeer, also the AMS Business Operations Commissioner, makes perfectly clear how proud he is to be a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, but it’s not the central pillar of his campaign. He has used both affiliations to his advantage where other candidates have tried to hide their fraternity membership.

Mr. Wazeer responded brilliantly to a loutish question from Senator Tariq Ahmed at Thursday night’s debate at the Gallery. Mr. Ahmed asked each candidate to say, without explanation, how many meetings they had attended before deciding to run.

Mr. Wazeer, having attended none, acquitted himself brilliantly: “I think it’s somewhat unfair to ask for absolutes without asking for an explanation… The reason why I haven’t attended senate meetings is because I’m extremely committed to my fraternity… I’m making a sacrifice by not attending [fraternity] meetings on Wednesday if I do get elected.”

People asking questions at these debates often get high on the thought that they really hammered a candidate. In this case the candidate nailed his inquisitor.

I should note that Mr. Wazeer’s bravura performance came in sharp contrast to that of Rob McLean, a member of Beta Theta Pi. Instead of sitting and listening he got up from the table, bought a pitcher of beer and drank it as the other candidates spoke. Classy.

Despite that, I hope a relaxing weekend is not being enjoyed by Paul Gibson-Tigh, the Voter-Funded Media (VFM) administrator, who really should be tackling his job instead.

VFM is a contest held in tandem with the AMS Elections that allows voters to decide which media outlet did the best job of covering the elections. Through a donation from Mark Latham, VFM’s founder, there’s a prize pool of $8,000 and voters decide which outlet deserves the kitty.

Voting started yesterday for everything except VFM. The proper channels that make it possible to vote in the contest have not done their job, as there is no online link that allows you to vote for the contest winners.

Mr. Gibson-Tigh offers this explanation to the UBC Insiders: “VFMs are not on the online ballot as of yet, because the deadline for entering the contest was [Friday] at 4pm. We didn’t want to disadvantage the last minute entrants (of which there were a few) so we couldn’t complete the list until the registration period had closed.”

This is yet another of a handful of bureaucratic lapses that have plagued the AMS elections from the start. The deadline for joining the contest was the day that voting started – if you waited that long to join, you only had a day to have a chance at winning the contest. I don’t see why earlier competitors should have votes denied them on the early days of voting when slackers decide to join at the last minute.

If you ever needed to provide a good case why students should not run elections, this would be it.

It befuddles me why this hasn’t hit the debates more loudly. It’s something that should have been a big issue in the AMS elections from day one, but I’ve heard very little talk about it at all – including those who claim to be concerned about it. VP Academic hopeful Nate Crompton relegates the issue to the “Other” category in his platform. 

I was at the meeting when a motion called on AMS council to recognize the Musqueam claim to UBC territory and to support ongoing negotiations taking place between the band and other groups over the title to the UBC Golf Course. No baggage attached, no action required of councillors apart from raising their hands to say “we agree.”

But council rejected it, and now they’re hearing from me.

Every member of the AMS executive supported the motion except for Matthew Naylor, now your candidate for the society’s presidency. He told me after the meeting that it’s the role of council to take stances on issues that specifically affect students and that that was one of the reasons he didn’t support it.

To be fair, he wasn’t the only one who said no. But there’s something to be said when you’re a student leader who can’t set an example and support a simple motion that says, “This is Musqueam territory, and we’re living on it.” Apparently that’s too hard for some people to digest.

The elections come down to the wire this week, with results announced Thursday night at the Gallery. I’ll think it a travesty if this doesn’t become an issue before then.

To her enormous credit, she moderated her rhetoric at Thursday’s debate. Translink once more came up for discussion and she held back from calling them a “private corporation.” The sad thing is that I might have been inclined to agree with her more radical stance in light of recent developments.

She also did a masterful job of dissociating herself from new radical elements on campus when someone said she was a member of the Wreath Underground. I believe her when she says she’s not.

Where my praise stops, however, is at her repeated mentions of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). Ms. Ratjen’s platform doesn’t make very clear what she would want them to do. She says that CASA does not lobby provincially, and that, “This is where the CFS comes in.”

When I asked her yesterday if she would be bringing the CFS to UBC as its lobby group, she said no, then repeated that CASA does not lobby provincially and that UBC students need a stronger voice at that level. As of today I’m still unclear what she wants with them. She recognizes fully the problems that SFU has experienced with the lobby group, which among other things has included meddling in student elections. Hmm…

Ms. Ratjen needs to be more clear in what she wants out of the CFS before people cast their votes in her favour. I can’t help but be wary of an agenda she’s not making explicit with regards to that controversial group.

Ms. Ratjen’s campus activities, often centered around UBC’s radical left, bear little of the bridge-building experience required of the VP, the position in charge of communication with civic, provincial and federal governments.

She’s an editor with the Knoll, UBC’s left-leaning, anti-Gordon Campbell newspaper. This past year she was also an organizer behind Trek Park, a demonstration that began in September as a pleasant protest against a disintegration of student space at UBC. Months later it fell victim to the elements and merely sat unkempt, looking less like a statement of protest than neglect. Ms. Ratjen was one of the minds behind the park – she thus bears some responsibility for its devolution.

Her campaign has repeatedly lambasted Translink as a “private corporation.” This is untrue. Translink has been restructured as a board of nine directors, selected by a council of mayors. The “private corporation” theory is a lie repeated so often that it’s been accepted as truth. Kind of like the presence of WMD’s in Iraq.

When asked about UBC’s relationship with the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), the university’s federal lobby group, she hinted at being open to working with the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). That’s a theory strengthened by her repeated calls for solidarity among students. There’s enough derision for the CFS at this university to fill a warehouse. She obviously hadn’t spoken to SFU students about their happy relationship with the CFS.

In short, Ms. Ratjen ought to tone down the rhetoric if she expects to work effectively with conservative governments. We’ve had radicals run the AMS executive before, and many remember how well that went down.

The VP External candidate got his hopes handed to him in a neatly-wrapped box after a sparsely-attended debate with rival candidate Stefanie Ratjen, who came with her own three-person cheering section. Mr. Poritz may have scuttled his whole campaign in one fell swoop.

The first question was about the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, a federal program that hands out $300 million in scholarships to university students every year. It’s set to expire in 2009 and candidates were asked what they would do about it. Mr. Poritz said, a little too honestly, that he doesn’t know anything about the scholarships. Strike one.

The candidates were then asked how they expect to build a relationship with Kevin Falcon, B.C.’s Minister of Transportation, to ensure that UBC’s transit woes are being addressed by the provincial government. Mr. Poritz replied that he comes from a background as a journalist and could have Minister Falcon on the phone in an hour.

Freeman obviously doesn’t know the pain of chasing a government minister for an interview. I interned with the North Shore News over the summer and couldn’t bend Falcon’s ear for even 15 minutes. Strike two.

Then came the fatal blow. Mr. Poritz was asked about a quote in a 2003 issue of The Point, UBC’s athletic newspaper. When asked what the word “woman” means to him, he responded, “Most women are becoming more obnoxious and less traditional.”

Mr. Poritz said he knew the quote would come back to haunt him. He didn’t anticipate how badly. Strike three.

He has one more chance this Thursday night to make a recovery before voting starts. He may be saved by the fact that most voters don’t watch these debates. If they did, he’d be toast.

The fur really flew at last Friday’s All-Candidates’ Meeting (ACM), usually meant to give budding student politicians a chance to learn the rules and meet their rival candidates. Starting at 5pm, it was a show for the spectacular unpreparedness of Brendan Piovesan, the AMS Elections Administrator.

Piovesan couldn’t even get the nomination deadline right – candidates’ forms said the deadline was 4pm, but the AMS website said 5pm. That means a number of electoral hopefuls didn’t even know when to declare their candidacy.

Piovesan nearly adjourned the meeting without even laying out the rules for the election or providing a list of candidates. Those present had to complain until they were blue in the mouth to get it from him. It was Sunday before campus media found out who was officially running in the election through an e-mail from Piovesan – not, as is customary, through the AMS itself, which to this day still does not have an official list of candidates on its website.

Campaigning starts today. Online voting starts Friday and goes until Tuesday. Paper balloting goes from 9am to 5pm on January 24th. Results to be announced at the Gallery that night.

That means there’s only four days allotted for campaigning before voting starts – a briefer period than there is to actually vote in the elections themselves. At this rate, we’ll be lucky if Piovesan gets anything right before the whole mess is over.

Update: As of Monday evening, the AMS has put up a list of candidates on its website, though there were no links to any of their platforms. So for now they’re just names, not faces, promises or substance.

Update: Christopher Eaton, UBC’s Academic Governance Officer, e-mailed me to say that Board of Governors and Senate nominations were handed in exactly when they were supposed to be, but he was not informed that the time of the ACM had been changed this year. Thus I have removed my point that candidacy forms should have been in to Piovesan an hour earlier. That criticism was not meant to be directed at Christopher Eaton or anyone at Enrolment Services, but at Piovesan and his incompetence at the start of the AMS elections this year.