So, uh, the Access Party.
It’s quite a relief after a year in which the majority faction, Swamp Party, was able to win 50 of 50 Senate seats in Spring 2014 and 49 of 50 in the Fall. In each of those elections, its executive ticket ran unopposed.
The last time any viable opposition existed was in 2012, when the Students party nearly wrested power from the hands of Swamp in a close election. But the loss was disheartening to many, and the party finally imploded this past year.
So the appearance of Access Party is enthralling; it represents the return to this campus of some semblance of a functioning democracy.
Yes, technically Student Government has always been a democracy, but in practice that word requires heavy scare quotes around it. Yes, there are elections — yes, there have been multiple parties. But the saga of the Swamp-Gator-Unite-and-Swamp-again cycle demonstrates SG’s long and storied history of being, effectively, a one-party oligarchy, run mostly on patronage from various student organizations rather than actual democratic process.
But, while endemic corruption, nepotism and back-room dealings are mostly responsible for the situation in SG, a significant part of the problem is the traditional weakness of the opposition.
Opposition parties usually lack the effectiveness and widespread support needed to gain a majority of seats, and students who fall outside of the Swamp camp rarely participate in elections.
Granted, opposition parties are also rarely in the position to coerce the largest and most powerful student organizations on campus to vote for them — through such effectual means as denying food to their members until they vote or rewarding them with booze if they do — but that’s neither here nor there.
All we know is Access Party seems to be aware of this. In the words of its presidential candidate, Joselin Padron-Rasines: “Once you’re in Student Government, you realize that it works for those who are powerful or well connected.”
Access also seems to be what the people have been waiting for. It’s gotten a lot more support and attention than the previous emergent SG party, Taco Libre, which was little more than an exercise in futility. As of this writing, Access Party has more than 1,000 likes on its Facebook page not even 24 hours after its creation. We can safely guess it’ll continue to grow today.
Access, then, is in a unique position to mobilize the non-Swamp masses and possibly overturn decades of political domination. But its success is entirely up to the efforts of its staff and the student body. We hope Access is able to change the way things are run around here.
Not that we are particularly enamored with Access or hold Swamp in contempt; but I think we can all agree it’d be nice if every election wasn’t won by a single party without contest.
