Election idiocy
THE END OF Hilary saw confusion at the Oxford Union, when presidential candidate Igor Toronyi-Lalic was disqualified, despite the fact that he had already lost the election. Union insiders suggested that had he not been disqualified, Toronyi-Lalic, last term's Librarian, probably would have succeeded in an attempt to force a re-poll between himself and the victorious Treasurer, Dave Watson.
This bizarre situation arose due to strict Union rules which forbid the soliciting of votes by any means other than conversation between close friends. Thus, one of the many forms of electoral malpractice is 'soliciting of votes by email'.
Two days after the election, Toronyi-Lalic came into possession of an email from Ed Tomlinson, a candidate for Standing Committee, asking friends to vote for himself, and also for Watson. This was swiftly given to the Returning Officer, who called an electoral tribunal. As Watson had won by a margin of only two votes, a re-poll was widely predicted.
Once the tribunal began, however, it transpired that the names of two other candidates for different positions, Rachel Wakefield and Olivia Jackson, had originally been mentioned in the email but had been deleted before it was presented to the RO. After a marathon session, ending in the early hours of the morning, the tribunal eventually decided that Toronyi-Lalic was responsible for 'evidence tampering'. He was then disqualified from the election and banned from standing in further elections for a year. Ed Tomlinson was disqualified from last term's election alone.
Union opinion was divided on whether the punishment was merited. RO Alex da Costa stated that Toronyi-Lalic had "behaved very stupidly" but former Press Officer Peter Orlov insisted that "the punishment was more harsh than the offence". Several Union sources suggested that the severity of the sentence was not due to the nature of the crime, but to the manner in which Toronyi-Lalic had attempted to "squirm" out of it, in a cynical attempt to repeat his chance at election.
Dave Watson did not openly condemn his opponent for his attempt at a re-poll, however, he stated that "when you have committed as much time to the Union as Igor had, obviously you are going to be very disappointed at losing the election". Watson admitted, however, that he was glad not to have to face the "time and effort of a re-poll". Toronyi-Lalic was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.
25th Apr 2002