The 5 types of YUSU president candidate

The unfunny joke candidate

We are at a Russell Group University with apparently clever people and we still can’t get one person- just one – per year who runs as a joke candidate and can actually tell a funny joke. We have a comedy society and a satire magazine, but sadly it is never anyone from either of these who runs. Buying a costume and gallivanting around campus making bad jokes about the lake is facile and below us, is it too much to hope for some sparkling wit to get us through essay season and the monotony of buzzwords and damp cardboard?

The ‘normal student’

“I care about what you care about, not this politics stuff but the REAL STUFF like, erm, banter. And free drinks? I think? Parties, definitely. Who needs a prez when you have a p-revs?” This candidate appears to have read every Buzzfeed article about what ‘student life’ is like and thinks that the best way to win a year swanning around York for 17k is to ‘engage with the students’ by regurgitating tired clichés about drinking and not writing your essays. Somehow more irritating than the endless repetition about ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ we get from the other candidates…

The one who’s scared to leave

“Look mate, I’ll be truthful with you here. It’s a fucking jungle out there, have you seen the graduate unemployment statistics? I can’t deal with it man, I’ve spent the last three years sheltered from the real world and it’s gotten even wilder than when I left it. People will slit each other’s throats for a two week un-paid internship at PWC and my Third in canoe studies has quite frankly not made me as employable as I’d hoped it would. So vote for me so I don’t have to leave. Please geez; you’d be doing me a solid and no mistake.”

The ex college chair

Everyone loves this one, and their college will tirelessly vote for them come elections- and this could be enough to swing the vote even though it has been evident since their First Year JCRC position that College Chair was just a stepping stone on the way to becoming YUSU Prez. They seem fun and bubbly and have built charisma from their year in their role, and have a committed campaigns team who will not stop chalking bad puns around campus which will stay on the walls, sad and faded as the hopes and dreams of the other candidates, for weeks after campaigning closes.

The careerist

“Friends, students, countrymen. I have a dream, a dream of being a PPC for the Labour Party or the director of a Think Tank specialising in policies of frog conservation in the Fens. Vote for me and I promise I will give you three things. Change, Representation and Reprechangebobulation. I feel I can speak for the average student because I’m one of you like mate. So yes, vote for me. Because a vote for <insert painful ‘matey’ nickname here> now is a vote for insuring I receive a 60,000 quid a year protected government salary in the future.”