IYSSE secures re-election to student parliament at Berlin’s Humboldt University
By
the IYSSE at Humboldt University
20 January 2018
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) won 3.74 percent of the vote in this year’s elections for the student parliament at Humboldt University in Berlin on January 16 and 17, according to preliminary results. Two IYSSE representatives were elected to the student parliament.
With 129 votes, the IYSSE received only 11 votes fewer than the Left Party’s student association (Linke/SDS). The IYSSE secured more votes than the Green Party’s student organisation (Grünbolt) and of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (RCDS), which both got 122 votes. Of the student organisations of the political parties represented in the German parliament (Bundestag), which have access to a large apparatus and substantial financial resources, only those of the liberal Free Democrats and the Social Democrats (Jusos) will have larger delegations in the student parliament, with three and four representatives respectively.
The IYSSE’s result is somewhat lower than last year (192 votes), which among other things was due to the fact that more lists contested the elections and the votes were therefore more widely distributed. The most votes were obtained by the group Power of Science (383), which ran 50 candidates from various academic disciplines and won seven seats. In addition, the IYSSE ran in the elections under conditions in which university management and right-wing student groups had been carrying out an aggressive propaganda campaign against them.
“In this context, the result is a strong confirmation of our work,” stated Sven Wurm, the IYSSE’s spokesman at Humboldt University. “Despite the censorship attempts by…