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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2014 News 21 ary education by more working-class students from traditionally Labour backgrounds. Jesmond Saliba, a former KSU secretary-general who spent years as a communications coordinator for former PN minister Austin Gatt, has a similar theory. "SDM candidates have always seemed to enjoy more support in view of the fact that SDM has a set of centre-right principles that are iden- tifiable with the Nationalist Party. The Nationalist Party has histori- cally enjoyed more support among university students." Matthew Agius, president of the Nationalist Youth movement (MZPN) and KSU's ex-secretary general, believes he has the answer. "It is crystal clear to me that the Nationalist Party is the party that has worked most in favour of students over the years through their heavy investment in education," Agius said. "Look at the current Labour govern- ment on the other hand. Although it has slightly increased stipends, it has also raised MATSEC examination fees, putting money in one pocket and taking it out of another. "KSU members grow to love stu- dent representation and therefore find it easier to identify with the PN." Political breeding ground A former social policy coordina- tor for the KSU, today journalist turned PN spokesperson Matthew Bonett believes that SDM's repeated electoral victories are not politically related. "SDM continuously churn out bet- ter electoral programmes than Pulse and students can see that they have a good track record in KSU. I know students who voted for both Labour and SDM and others who voted for both the PN and Pulse." Another former KSU education commissioner, Marsaxlokk coun- cillor (PN) Angelo Micallef, agrees. "Students vote according to the elec- toral manifestos and track records of the organisations. It seems as though SDM has always outperformed Pulse in these two criteria. With Labour in government now, students still pre- ferred SDM." The current KSU executive also appears to keep a cautious distance from the political aspect of the stu- dents' council. "I don't see KSU as a platform for a political career," KSU president Gayle Lynn Callus said. "In reality, the people we speak to and the issues we speak about are all education-re- lated. There are better political plat- forms others can seek, such as local councils." "I see KSU as an opportunity for me to bring about change, especially in relation to social policy," KSU so- cial policy commissioner Rebecca Micallef said. "The trend is that the most active students on campus get involved in student organisations or KSU. It is usually these active students who show enthusiasm at a micro-level who then proceed to greater projects and hence get in- volved in politics." Philosophy lecturer Jean Paul de Lucca, who was elected to the post of KSU education commissioner from among the student representatives of University boards and not as part of either SDM or Pulse, admits that the motivation of some of those who join the KSU is sometimes worrying. "I do have problems with peo- ple who use the KSU to further in- terests and agendas that are not its own. KSU executive members should completely suspend their involvement in political parties and organisations during their tenure, if anything out of respect toward the institution they form part of. "The KSU should not be, and should not be perceived as, some sort of proxy battlefield or launch pad for national politics. It should promote broad participation and representa- tion which is not reducible to party politics. Student politics are not the monopoly of party politics. Should this be the case, then students end up being misrepresented." Yet former KSU president Jacques Rene Zammit, a key player in the introduction of the KSU's contro- versial first-past-the-post electoral system back in the 1990s, insists that the student council has indeed be- come as much a stepladder to poli- tics as local councils. "Political parties have found an ideal way to nurture careers through SDM and Pulse, but nobody will ad- mit this hand on heart," Zammit said. "I would like to think that university students vote with their minds and not according to national party lines but I imagine that a good 80% do so for the latter reason." However, he refused to pin SDM's uninterrupted successes on just one specific reason. "The theory that university Labour sympathisers are scared to admit so is rubbish – if they are scared now, when will they not be? You can't pin it down to there being more Nation- alist voters at university either, when only around 30% of students even bother to vote in the KSU elections at all. "It's more likely that SDM have a stronger pull towards students than Pulse. SDM have a strong record in KSU and there is always safety in the know. On the other hand, Pulse have had some hopeless proposals over the years, such as to install jukeboxes in every corner on campus." Leaders of tomorrow: 1996, from left: Deborah Schembri (Labour MP), Cyrus Engerer, Nationalist councillor turned Labour candidate; Alexis Callus, formerly a PN deputy mayor, and then-KSU president Manuel Delia, later head of Austin Gatt's secretariat