University Campus Election?

Even before the much awaited general election, our universities under-graduates are up for the upcoming campus elections. Candidates are going all out, day and night, to campaign for votes for the past few days. Election will be held from Feb 21 to Feb 24.

News excerpt from The Star newspaper (17 Feb 2011)

Successfully, every year, campus election which initially meant for universities only, got the attention of public and full coverage from major dailies. Malaysian is like watching European Cup (campus election), prior to the more important FIFA World Cup (general election). Meanwhile, politician tends to monitor the progress of the campus elections for various reasons:

1. Read the minds of undergraduates
2. Identify the potential future politicians
3. Predicting the youth trends on politics

Penggerak Mahasiswa or Pro-Mahasiswa?

Not surprisingly, campus elections are heated up once again this year. As a graduate from one of Malaysia's public university, it reminded me on campus election. those days Brochures and banners seen every corner. Ceramah-ceramah by candidates are being held here and there. But, to be honest, I'm really not sure who are the candidates and what is their promises and whether those promises materialized.

At USM, Pro-Mahasiswa candidates and supporters campaigning in the campus. (SinChew Daily)

Finance Malaysia is wondering:

Why we have these campus election at the first place?

And, is it wise to have it?

Or, should we amend it?
 

They says that campus election can build the charisma of undergraduates who are the future leaders. But, other than campus election, there is no other ways to instill such good values to our undergraduates nowadays? You must be joking...

In campus election, one can win the election by simply campaigning for few days to fish vote, and gone missing for the whole year. If this is your purpose of having campus election, our future politicians would be worse. It is wasting time and money.

News excerpt from mStar online reporting a scuffle happens at UKM which needed the help of FRU last year.

Very often, government is blamed by undergraduates for not allowing them to involve in politics. Reasons being for the benefit of undergraduates and to encourage them to just focus on their studies. But then, why allowed them to involve in campus election? Is it totally unrelated between campus election and politics? You must be fooling yourself if you said no...

In my opinion, we should either ALLOW or NOT ALLOW. By allowing, please let them to engage in politics freely. Otherwise, please abolish such campus election totally to let them focus on their studies 100%. Do not please our undergraduates simply because you forbidding them to engage in politics, and you do not want to arouse their anger at the same time.