Every year The Gateway hosts a panel to determine who should and who will win in each race for the Students’ Union elections to assist those undecided on who to vote for. Our election dissection panel is here with their insights on student politics and their takes on this year’s candidates.

Opinions expressed by the panellists do not reflect those of The Gateway.

The Panel

This year’s panel for election dissection included:

• Tom Ndekezi: U of A alumni, former arts and culture editor at The Gateway

• Kyle Monda: U of A alumni, past Gateway contributor, GFC and Students’ Council councillor, past candidate for Students’ Union vice-president (student life) 

• Alyssa Stoddard: third-year political science and English student, previous caucus researcher for the Government of Alberta (2019 – 2021)

The Candidates

• Chris Beasley, a fifth-year political science student and current Students’ Union arts councillor.
• Christian Fotang, a fourth-year biology student and current Students’ Union vice-president (external).

For this race, the panel noted very stark differences between the candidates and their platforms, as well as their approaches to the government.

Monda started off the conversation with an evaluation for Fotang’s reason to run again. 

“Fotang running for re-election in a vice-president position is a very interesting move,” he said. “It’s not something you typically see … to me, if you’re running for re-election in the same position, you need a really compelling justification for that — some big unfinished project you think you’re uniquely positioned to push over the finish line, something big coming up in the next year that you think that your experience is needed, and I don’t think that [Fotang] really communicated to us why he deserves to be in the position for another year.”

“There were a lot of promises of things like more town halls and more awareness, which I would expect from a Students’ Council candidate, quite frankly, and not someone running to be a vice-president for re-election. I was just very unimpressed by the platform, and I don’t think it justifies him being re-elected as an incumbent, and I would’ve expected more.”

Monda also mentioned that he liked Beasley’s “detail-oriented” platform, pointing out the grassroots advocacy in Beasley’s platform and public actions as things he liked. Additionally, Monda noted that “[he doesn’t] think closed-door lobbying and pictures on Instagram with politicians is something that works anymore.”

Ndekezi noted that he had the same concerns with Fotang’s platform.

“I think you need a good reason to run for a second year and in the case of Fotang, I do kinda get the sense that he’s just going to try again,” Ndekezi said. “Last year was like, ‘oh, that didn’t go so well. Let me just try to do this again and maybe set it right and do a better job of it.’ I’m not so sure that’s a very compelling reason for people to want to elect you a second time or give you a second shot.”

“Chris Beasley’s platform is really detailed, it’s really thorough … I think this is Beasley’s to lose.”

Stoddard noted that Beasley was “hardest working and best [at] signage,” but felt that Fotang “deserves a second chance.”

“I disagree that Fotang has not done anything necessarily to be given a chance to have another year at VPX,” she said. “From experience sitting on boards, I know it’s different, but I would say that with COVID-19 being such a roller coaster for universities and for student advocacy, I think that having an opportunity to engage and advocate not just online is something that I think [Fotang] could do really well.”

“I found it interesting that his plan in his platform — I thought Fotang’s platform was quite thorough. I appreciated his comments for Campus Saint-Jean as well.”

As a student who lives in the Greater Edmonton Area, Stoddard also expressed concern that she didn’t see any communication between transit providers and VPX candidates other than Edmonton Transit System (ETS), hoping that transit options to Sherwood Park, St. Albert, and other communities close to Edmonton can be improved.

Stoddard said that she was disappointed with Fotang’s Get Out the Vote (GOTV) campaign and was “not impressed,” as she had worked on the GOTV campaign in the 2019 federal elections.

“I did really enjoy that Beasley wants to increase the GOTV campaigns more and put a greater emphasis on next year’s elections,” Stoddard said.

“I did like that Beasley talked about microcredentialing and support for international students. I thought that was great, but I do think that Fotang’s presence on campus considering that he is involved in other advocacy efforts outside of the U of A, which really in my view, as VPX is your niche — working together with those external stakeholders. I think he would be the better person to work with those groups.” 

Ndekezi mentioned that he didn’t think Fotang did a “markedly worse” job compared to other Students’ Union executives, especially with COVID-19 being a hurdle this year.

“I don’t know if I saw enough necessarily last year for me to think that [Fotang] should get another go-around,” Ndekezi said. “I think he’s running a better campaign this year … I’m still more interested to what Beasley brings to the position.”

Stoddard and Monda agreed that both VPX candidates have different approaches to advocacy, with Monda describing Fotang’s style as “top-down … corporate approach” and Beasley’s style as “organizing and labour union style.”

Monda also noted that “any incumbent has an advantage,” with Ndekezi agreeing that students that may not be familiar with governance may be swayed by this. However, Ndekezi mentioned that this is not always an advantage.

“I think for a lot of people, they see you’re an incumbent and they aren’t really aware of who you are or what you’ve done, it may make them — at least in my own experience, it would probably make me less likely for me to vote for you again,” Ndekezi said. “I think that’s something Fotang has struggled with — getting the word out on the work he has been doing, so I think he’ll struggle on that front.”

Stoddard echoed his sentiment, but felt that Fotang might have “a greater asset” with his experience on campus with internal U of A communities. 

All panellists agreed that the “ground game” is most important, with Monda impressed with the “high quality of Beasley’s campaign,” and the panellists agreed that Beasley might win on that front.

Who will win: three votes for Chris Beasley

Who should win: two votes for Chris Beasley, one vote for Christian Fotang