With the dust on the sabbatical elections finally settling, the farce has now seeped from the upper echelons of the Union and reached Clubs & Societies Committee level. Towards the end of the spring term, all CSCs hold elections for the membership of the next year's committee. Usually these run smoothly, but this year's Social Clubs Committee (SCC) elections have had an official complaint made against the way the elections have been run.

It is alleged that the election this year was mis-handled from the beginning; the nomination papers (which are required to be up a full week in advance of the elections at the AGM) were up late and also not in the announced place. It is also claimed that the SCC Chair failed to inform the clubs inside the SCC where the forms were available for 24 hours after this.

The main basis of the complaint however, revolves around decisions regarding the deadline for close of nominations. This was clearly stated on the papers as 2pm on the day of the election and at that time there was only one fully seconded candidate for the position of SCC Chair. Just before 3pm the Returning Officer, Imran Sharaf, issued an email stating that he had received a complaint that nominations were still being made after 2pm since the papers were still up. Mr Sharaf announced his decision to extend the deadline for close of nominations until 6pm, the scheduled start of the meeting so as to ensure the “smooth running” of the elections. Speaking to Live! Mr Sharaf highlighted that he thought this was the best result to ensure that the elections were also fair, and constitutional. SCC standing orders require elections to be held before Easter.

This decision enabled a new candidate to stand for Chair - Pranati Joshi (current SCC Chair), who became fully seconded just before 5pm. The other candidate (Simon Matthews, current SCC Treasurer) was fully seconded at the original 2pm deadline. At the meeting Mr Sharaf explained his decision, and bearing in mind that that the election would be unconstitutional if held at another time, the committee voted to go ahead with the election. At the time of the actual election, the current chair spoke out as to why she should be re-elected including listing good time management as one of her skills.

Some have drawn worrying parallels with the situation this time last year when Pranati Joshi became a candidate for the position of Chair after the nomination papers were reposted after the deadline for nominations had closed and when there was an already fully seconded candidate. These elections were run by the same Returning Officer as this year. However no official complaint was made last year.

At the meeting Ms Joshi was re-elected to the post for next year. However, a complaint has been made to the Deputy President for Clubs and Societies. The person making the complaint is believed to have stressed a desire that the elections should be re-run with the originally fully seconded candidates only – Simon Matthews and RON.

At present it is unclear whether this complaint will be resolved within the SCC or will require arbitration from ICU.