Adelaide Student Politics

Posted March 24th

I reported a while back that Overseas Student Association (OSA) President Dilan Moragolle had resigned. Well, apparently not. Forgive my mistake, but in all fairness, you’d be confused too.

So, here’s what I now know. The OSA elections were held in October of last year. Proper notice wasn’t given, the quorum of 25 students wasn’t reached (only 22 students showed up, out of an overseas student population of around 5000), there were elections for non-existent positions, the returning officer was invalid…there were a few things wrong with it. It didn’t take long for the union’s legal advice to declare the elections invalid.

Shortly afterwards, Dilan resigned. He did this in an email to the newly elected council. There followed a period where Dilan claimed that as he had never ‘signed the resignation’ (as emails are evidently invalid unless signed), he remained the President. In the February 19th meeting, AUU President Lavinia Emmett-Grey reported to Board that he had changed his mind and accepted his own resignation. In an editorial I wrote shortly after, I said that he was done with the OSA.

Let’s go back to the elections. Recall that Dilan sent his resignation to the new OSA council? The one whose election was declared invalid? That means Dilan’s resignation is invalid. So, he’s back. The fact that he was one of the improperly elected councilors doesn’t seem to negate the fact that his resignation was invalid. So, he remains the President despite his election having been declared invalid, and his resignation, pending the re-elections which are scheduled to take place on April 6th. Don’t look at me: I’m just repeating the legal advice Lavinia explained to Board.

Posters for said April 6th elections are apparently up, though I haven’t seen any. Nominations opened last Wednesday, and twenty had been received by that Friday. I expect there’ll be a lot more news concerning the OSA shortly, especially if Andres Munoz-Lamilla’s ‘investigations’ are successful (he made a claim at the last Board meeting that a Board director had faked an OSA meeting, though wouldn’t say more).

Ah Dilan. Never say die.