Debate Photos, January 21

I'm a big fan of balancing out coverage of the elections, and while it's fine and well to analyze soundbites and award points, sometimes it's necessary to post photos of people bearing facial expressions that only appear between words, and for us to come together as a community in laughing at the people who are putting so much of themselves out there in the hopes of serving their fellow students.



Ale Coates and Tom Dvorak, our VP Finance Candidates.



Fire was sadly unable to ignite the crowd's interest; although there was plenty of kindling (especially with all the plants), the jokes just seemed to sputter.


Here's Rory Green, Tim Chu's painfully loud campaign manager. I found myself distracted by her a number of times, which did affect my opinions of Tim.



Serious VPX Candidates Iggy and Tim. Tim stood up when he spoke which really only served to highlight how he was a wisp of a man next to the Iggy.


Bruce Krayenhoff, electoral reform nerd (this is a term of endearment around here) asks a question about BC-STV.


The Kings Head sips tequila through a straw. I'm not sure why the joke candidates aren't spread out over multiple races; doubling up as they have will only make it harder to get their 10% of the vote.


After Iggy's opening gambit about protest politics, current VPX Stef Ratjen delineated all the ways in which protests, demonstrations, and student initiatives had been successful over the past year (especially in the case of the Aquatic Centre, which went from "closing the free gym" to "free for students almost all the time") and asked if/how the candidates would continue.
The answers were interesting, but I'll leave it up to Maria to examine them in depth.


From left to right:

• Blake Frederick -- current AVP External, former Insiders writer, Presidential candidate
• Michael Duncan -- current AMS President, former SUS President, often seen shirtless and painted blue
• Tristan Markle -- current VP Admin, VP Admin candidate, former owner of awesome dreadlocks
• Bijan Ahmadian -- current BoG rep, former AMS Ombudsman, somehow on campus for 11 years.

Mike's the only one who seemed to watch the crowd while the other people spoke; he also ended up looking at any cameras pointed at him, which really does work in his favor.



Debate Moderator and AUS President Avneet Johal. AJ is living in a tent in the Ike Barber Learning Centre at the moment to raise awareness and funds for schools in India. He gets five minutes an hour away from said tent to do whatever he needs to do outside the tent and so ended up staying in the tent for eighteen hours (!) to bank up the time to moderate the debate. That's dedication, folks. Or insanity. Your call.


This is just a picture I like, but again, note that Mike is looking at the camera.