Last week, I wrote about the Taco Libre Party, an offshoot of the Students Party whose goal is to bring a Taco Bell to UF’s campus. Upon closer inspection, though, it was clear that the Taco Libre party is the creation of frustrated opposition members trying to generate interest in Student Government in the shadow of the domineering Swamp Party.
Taco Libre was the only party challenging Swamp for executive seats in the upcoming elections. The Students Party isn’t running any executive candidates, citing a strategy of focusing on seats it knows it can win. Playing it safe seems smart, but it also sounds like the Students Party won’t last for more than a few elections. The grim situation, then, perfectly summed up the political situation at UF: The only party challenging the political establishment was literally a taco party.
I say “was” because earlier this week, the Supervisor of Elections said the Taco Libre vice presidential candidate “failed to qualify.”
For some reason, the vice president candidate’s faulty paperwork also disqualifies the party’s presidential candidate, leaving only treasurer-hopeful Mica Montero. Officially, then, the only names that will appear on the ballot for president and vice president will be Swamp Party candidates, running unopposed.
Leaders in the Taco Libre party said they will pursue a write-in campaign. The hopes of the Taco Libre party, and the entire indie bloc as a whole, are not totally dead yet. But this most recent news makes it even more likely that we’re headed for a Student Government entirely dominated by a single party.
Luckily, the Swamp Party has a solid platform and policies that very well may make UF an even better place to live and work. But the party, like its previous incarnations, is the political wing of a corrupt and nepotistic system that relies on patronage and coercion to stay in power.
I sincerely wish that I am what that statement makes me seem, paranoid to the point of sickness, huddled in a dark room with tin foil on my head. The depressing fact is that I’m not — it’s just that I’ve spent more than twenty minutes reading about corruption in SG.
The time has come for La Revolución.
One of two things must happen if the Student Body wants to avoid a single-party system. A single-party system would create a situation where the same people are in charge of everything and get to make all the decisions, with no dissenting voices to speak of. No dissenting voices means no debate, no discussion and no change.
If you find that situation appealing, by all means, vote Swamp.
If you don’t, the easiest way to avoid it is for the write-in campaign to succeed. If it does, it’s conceivable that the Taco Libre candidates in the executive branch and their colleagues in the Senate will join forces with whomever gets elected from the Students Party. After all, Taco Libre was founded by former Students Party members, and a political victory would probably encourage them to reunite. Such a coalition would guarantee a modest independent voice in Student Government.
If the write-ins do succeed, next year we may have a shiny new Taco Bell and a Student Government that represents the will of the Student Body.
Chances of a successful write-in campaign, though, are very slim. It’s far more likely the auspices of death looming over this incarnation of the indie bloc will come true. Right now it’s a wounded animal, barely able to lift a finger against the massive might and influence of the majority. Calling this a David-and-Goliath isn’t fair because it implies there is a serious possibility that the opposition won’t get utterly decimated in this election.
In the likely event that Swamp wins all executive and most of the Senate seats, this generation of the opposition will have fought its last battle.
But even if this election is a total victory for the majority, there is a chance that the opposition may continue to flourish. The parties that currently compose it will die — sure. But is that actually such a bad thing?
If the outcome of this election ends up as one-sided as it looks, the simple result will be that these parties failed. Of course the playing field was never level, but that’s precisely what an opposition party in UF’s political landscape needs to do: level the playing field. If an opposition party is ever going to succeed, much less compete in this political climate, it must be organized, active and effective.
But, most importantly, it needs to stop playing the underdog game the majority has created.
[Alec Carver is a UF journalism freshman. His columns appear on Fridays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 2/14/2014 under the headline "SG write-in campaign must succeed to challenge system"]
