Presidents aren’t as powerful as you think

An editorial I wrote last year regarding the impossibility of many presidential campaign promises.


Presidential campaigning for tomorrow’s election has been underway for two weeks now.

Posters are plastered across campus. Candidates and their teams roam the halls and try to convince you why they will make the best Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union (WLUSU) president for the 2009-2010 academic year.

Despite all the candidates’ campaign efforts and platform initiatives, it’s unlikely that anyone who gets elected will actually be the type of president they aim to be.

“You want better food in the Dining Hall? I’ll see what I can do.” “You don’t like the lighting in the Science Building? I’ll look into that.” “Tuition is too high? Let’s just eliminate it altogether.”

WLUSU candidates make empty promises like these every year.

Those running are likely to say whatever they can to get the vote, but when it actually comes to upholding these promises and accomplishing something significant in their term, the chances are much less likely.

Presidents don’t typically run for re-election, so there’s little incentive for them to actually keep the students in mind throughout their presidential term. It’s much easier to operate status quo and appease those with whom they work on a daily basis.

WLUSU has close ties with the university’s administration and, unfortunately, admin and staff within WLUSU have a significant impact on the decisions the president makes.

The students’ union follows a strategic plan so it’s unlikely that any one person would actually set it off course.

Traditionally, when the union or WLU administration is unhappy about something, they sit down and negotiate, and an incoming president likely won’t alter that relationship.

WLUSU lacks advocacy on behalf of the student body, meaning that the president rarely “provides for the needs of students,” as the union’s mandate suggests they should.

Unless you follow WLUSU politics very closely, it’s hard to see a tangible thing that a president has done recently that has been good for Laurier students.

Bringing back the Hawk certainly doesn’t count in my eyes.

All presidents – including those in whom I had great confidence when they stepped into office – have made decisions that I don’t feel have been in the best interest of the student body.

This year, for instance, WLUSU president Colin Le Fevre decided to ban underagers from the Turret and to cut the campus radio station.

Clearly, whoever is elected tomorrow is in an important position, though it’s likely that once they get into office they will forget the promises they made to students and lose sight of the mandate they ran on.

American political scientist Henry Kissinger once said, “University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” He must have been describing the WLUSU presidential position when he said that.

While the campaign season hasn’t been particularly vicious this year, like every other year there have been plenty of campaign promises made that are unlikely to be met, no matter who wins in tomorrow’s election.

Candidates will tell you that they’ll always put the students first, but when working under the constraints of WLUSU, this rarely happens.


Laura Carlson
Editor-in-Chief