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 Leadership and change are buzz words during elections. Political spirants everywhere have banked on the terms, waving it in their campaign taglines and plumping their speeches with their advocacy. From US presidential candidate Barack Obama’s ‘Change we can believe in’ to SAMASA’s ‘Better. Stronger. True Leaders’, to SANDIGAN’s ‘Leadership is our profession’ and ‘Truth for Change’. Questioning the use of leadership and change as campaign propaganda would be absurd. However, reassessing its supposed meaning and significance to the electorate, would be beneficial, if not necessary.
Past and current candidates to council positions in FEU have tagged themselves as people eager to lead, along with their altruistic cause of being of service to students. While it is not entirely true that leadership is synonymous to being elected in the council, it is acknowledged that position is the best platform for leadership to effect the studentry. What is entailed with having to seek a position however is the weight of accountability candidates put upon themselves. Not just to hold a position, but to exemplify leadership.
Student leadership, more than anything else, is student representation. Student leaders are entrusted to rally forth the cause of the students, and fight for the things that ordinary students wouldn’t dare take on. Inherent to student leadership, is making the students feel bigger than themselves, and ensuring that the voice of the studentry on important issues is acknowledged and respected. People elected to the councils are to resound the cause of the students to the Administration, lobby for staunch upholding of student rights and betterment of student treatment, and not just bank on acquaintance parties, shindigs, concerts and activities which may in part serve to entertain, but do little to surface the causes of studentry.
Change has also been a frequent by word in elections. Candidates usually morph into advocates of change, brandishing it in their platforms and campaigns. However the amount of change that elected council members have brought has been difficult to quantify, or has not been felt at all to be quantified. While it may be easy to blame incumbent council officers for inaction, it must be emphasized that the studentry accord upon themselves the opportunity to be served better, and to receive significant changes. Thus change, aside from being the responsibility of elected leaders, is the weight put upon the shoulders of the electorate. The magnanimity of the task of being a student leader is emphasized when the electorate, or the students who voted for such people in such crucial positions do not waver in their vigilance.
A piece of advice on February 29: listen to what candidates have to offer in terms of lobbying what is significant to you, and the studentry. Look for concrete plans of action, not mere pencil outlines. Discern between the vague, the substantial and the unimportant. Do not settle for words which run along the lines of the candidates ‘doing their best’, of which the best, is often sewn on the vague. Seek the most salient points of their campaign. Do not pick the unknown evil. Pick the lesser evil. Or if possible choose the one who will deliver.
Choice is a responsibility, not a mere privilege. |
