YUSU presidential candidate Max Flynn announced he was pulling out of the race hours before the results of the contest were announced, describing the election process as ‘hellish’ and stating that ‘intense emotional and physical pressure’ affected all candidates running for YUSU Elections. In a Facebook post made earlier this evening, Max thanked those that helped campaign for him, friends and family, but described how after campaigning, he had become ‘disillusioned with YUSU and student politics and decided that YUSU isn’t the best place for me next year’ and announced he had withdrawn from the race.
Alex Urquhart, the new YUSU President Elect, making his acceptance speech.
Max Flynn posted on his campaign Facebook page
Hi everyone, I’ve got some bad news. Its no secret that these elections have been incredibly tough for all the candidates. The campaign period can be pretty hellish and puts candidates under intense emotional and physical stress and asks them to put their lives and degrees on hold for weeks to have any chance of being elected. What you might not know is that only a few weeks before campaigning opened I was diagnosed with ADHD. This has made the last few weeks even tougher, and its taken a real toll on me. I’ve had time to think about this experience, and reflect on what I want for my future, and after this weeks campaigning I’ve became pretty disillusioned with YUSU and student politics and decided that YUSU isn’t the best place for me next year and I’ve decided to withdraw from the election. I want to thank everyone who got involved with the campaign, seeing friends and family rally behind me in this period has genuinely meant the world to me and having complete strangers come up to me and tell me well done and that they were voting for me kept me going. Thanks for everything, I hope my campaign has still raised awareness that support for mental health on campus needs to change.
The elections have been marred by criticisms of inaccessibility. Wellbeing and Community candidates Mia Shantana Chaudhuri-Julyan and Tom Underwood made a video early in the campaign, pledging to not campaign at inaccessible club venues or use excessive cardboarding. Yesterday multiple candidates appeared on URY’s talk show ‘University Radio Talk’ to discuss accessibility and disabled students’ participation in YUSU Elections (the show can be found here).
Fellow YUSU presidential candidate Roberto Avelar commented that he knew Max had been ‘stressed and that whoever wins it would be appropriate for YUSU to sit down and discuss how to relieve pressure on candidates during the campaign process’. Roberto wishes Max the best of luck for the future. Alex Urquhart refused to comment at the time of publication.
Current YUSU President Millie Beach commented: ‘Candidates retain the right to withdraw at any point in the process.’
During the week a number of candidates took part in a collaborative video, which was released by the official YUSU Facebook page.