From November 11th, the election campaign for the 2014 General Student Council (GSC) and General Female Student Council (GFSC) started at Chonnam National University (CNU). The G(F)SC candidates advertised election pledges on campus and encouraged students to vote. Jang Min-kyu (Senior, Division of Forest Resources) and Kim Han-seong (Senior, Dept. of Geography) registered as the candidates for the 46th GSC President and Vice President. For the GFSC, Park Yu-mi (Senior, School of Business Administration) and Kim Ji-young (Senior, Dep. of Animal Resources) ran for President and Vice President for 2014.
    The problem that the previous G(F)SC had was they had a lack of communication with students so the key concept of the 2014 G(F)SC candidates is ‘sympathizing with students’. The GSC candidates said that they will listen to what students want through monthly surveys and meeting with students face by face. But the pledges seem to say something different. The main pledge ‘SAVE N’, is all about co-working with Korean University Students Association (KUSA) such as abolition of the financial fiscal law or recovery of public interest in national universities. They also pledged to work hard to declare national university students’ movements and to solve youth unemployment problems by co-working with KUSA. ‘Political CNU G(F)SC’ image seems inevitable this year as well. Bae Kyung-tae, (Senior, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering), pointed the ironic movement of the student council. He said, “Personally, I think they should put less attention to external or social issues when there are tons of problems to solve within the university. They need to always remember that students elected them to work for students.” An anonymous senior student from the Department of English Language and Literature said “The G(F)SC looks like they have done a lot of work but it does not really appeal to me. It is just their own league not students’.” For this matter the candidates promised to listen to what students want through monthly surveys and meeting with students face by face.
     The Central Election Management Committee (CEMC), executive board makes regulations for periods and looks over the whole election. Yoon Min-ho, CEMC’s chairman said “We are formed to supervise the clean and fair elections of 2014. We also try to encourage students to pay attention to election and to vote.” In fact, other than spreading election promoting sheets, CEMC handed discount movie coupons to students who voted during the election. Unfortunately, even with the campaign of the G(F)SC and the effort of the CEMC, the turnout seems disappointing. Every year, the vote counting is postponed because of the low voter turnout. To make the vote counting possible, the total turn out must be more than 50 percent of all students but the number seems pretty high when it comes to election. Why do CNU students not vote for their presidents and vice presidents? “I do not see the point of voting”, said Lee Eun-kyung (Senior, School of Business Administration). According to her, voting on a sole candidate whether to support the candidate or not cannot be a real election. “I am not interested to be honest, when there is just one candidate,” she added.
     The vote counting of the 2014 G(F)SC elections started on November 28th. After 5 hours, the result came out. Jang Min-gyu and Kim Han-seong were elected as the 46th GSC President-Elect and Vice President-Elect. They got 79.31 percent favorable votes among 53.61 percent of total voter turnout. “With the trust of 20,000 fellow students, I promise to be a diligent, honest and modest president of CNU,” Jang Min-gyu stated his feelings about being elected. Kim Han-seong, said “During the election period, I was able to meet many good students and listen to what they want from GSC. Under the ‘Real Sympathy’ slogan, I will do my best to run the 2014 GSC.” Also, Park Yu-mi and Kim Ji-young were elected as the 46th GFSC President-Elect and Vice President-Elect. They said “Thanks for students who voted and we will work hard to communicate with CNUians.” “The GFSC will be more active in public relations and make various projects so please stay with us,” they added.
 

By Kim Hae-in, Student Editor