Vote for me, my friend

It didn't take me a current election period and campaign posters all over university to realize one thing: that student elections are mainly accounts of popularity.

Ever since I was in middle school, it was usually the kid who was the most popular who won the elections for president in school. Wearing the colours of your friend's campaign is sign of support, and if you went to the other candidate, it was like a friendship betrayal.

Needless to say, that it's all about the candidates' public image, how they protray themselves to others publicly. I remember when I was young in like grade 5, I was torn between two campaigns because my friends group got divided into two: one going for purple and green, and the other for yellow and orange. Did I know what their slates were about? Nah-uh. But the puple and the good looking guy running for president was enough to attract my attention...and my vote.

As I grew older, things changed slightly. With the campaigns going on this week at my university, it was inevitable for me to notice two guys I had a crush on are running for one slate. Yes, I voted for them. But also, one of my friends was running for the opposite slate. I voted for him too. So I basically voted for people I knew. But contrary to my younger years, I did read what each candidates were proposing to improve university and student life. Thought I didn't really care much since I am going to be out of this place next year anyways.

But elections, let me emphasize it, it's about popularity. Even I have experiences that before, in the good way. Last year I ran for VP Communications for my college, and through a series of clever posters, fond speech during candidates debate, and friendly socializing mostly with residence people (which accounts for a vast amount of people as potential voters), I won the position. I didn't win because people were more interested about my visualization of the college compared to my opponents, but because I sold myself to them to vote for me. The results were pretty close, but I think the big advantage I had was that I had the vote from residence people, whereas my other two opponents have little contact with the new residents. I can say I had 75 friends at that time.

At least this kind of elections happen majorly in student elections. At least some people do take politics as a serious issue, and study the candidates well before electing them as rulers. It's a shame most people don't take it seriously.