The Doughnut Party has won a seat on the university council during its first election, it became clear during Monday’s online online results broadcast.
‘Fantastic’, said party leader Taichi Ochi when the results were announced. While the newest party on the university council was founded by scholarship PhDs, Ochi emphasised that it will defend the interests of all students. ‘We’re all part of this university and we want the best for all students.’
Apart from the Doughnut Party, student party De Vrije Students (DVS) is also happy with the result. They won another seat, which means they’ll have two next academic year. Lijst Calimero held on to its five seats while Studenten Organisatie Groningen (SOG) lost one, ending up with four.
The division of seats remained the same in the staff section: eight seats for the Personnel faction and four for the Science faction.
Turnout
A total of 22.95 percent of students voted in the university council elections. This percentage is slightly higher than the 22.11 percent from last year, but still lower than the 24.9 percent that voted in person in the elections in 2019.
37.7 percent of staff members voted in the university council elections. This is a small increase compared to the 36.1 percent that voted in 2019. According to university president Jouke de Vries, the slight increase in both student and staff voters might be due to the corona crisis.
‘People are more interested in knowing what’s happening at the university’, he said during the results broadcast. ‘They want to have a say, and that’s important to us as well. The UG is a large university and it’s important that we create policies that take our students and staff into account.’
Faculties
Faculties also voted for their own faculty councils. More students voted in this year’s election than in last year’s. Just like last year, the University College had the highest percentage of student voters: 60,8 percent. UCG also had the highest increase, as 49.08 percent of students voted last year.
Student voting numbers were lowest at the medical faculty, where 17.28 percent of students voted. Students at the medical faculty didn’t vote the past two years, because the number of students participating in the elections was equal to the number of seats on the council.
At five of the eleven faculties, staff members didn’t need to vote this year due to the number of candidates being equal to the number of seats. The Office of the University and the University library also didn’t participate in the election this year, for the same reasons.
Highest turnout
The highest voter turnout was among staff voting for the employee council at the Centre for Information Technology (CIT). Turnout was 66.28 percent. This is a drop compared to the last election in 2019, when 76.54 percent made it to the virtual voting booth.
At the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, the fewest employees voted in the election. Turnout was 53.33 percent, a drop from 56.91 percent in 2019.