Press release
7 Oct 2011
For immediate release
The Representative Council elections of Aalto University Student Union (AYY) will be arranged for the second time on 24 Oct–2 Nov 2011. In the elections, the Representative Council of 45 members will be elected for the next two-year term. The Representative Council is the Student Union’s highest decision-making body.
This year, there are 343 candidates in AYY’s elections. There are 19 electoral coalitions and four electoral alliances including 17 electoral coalitions. Three candidates do not belong to any electoral alliance.
For the first time in the elections, Aalto International Coalition, the electoral coalition of international students, will run as a candidate. 30 students from the coalition list will run as a candidate for the Representative Council, which is nearly one tenth of the number of candidates in the whole elections. The largest single coalition is Avainrengas with 135 candidates and the largest alliance is Sinivihreät from the same coalition with 44 candidates on its list.
Compared with the previous elections, the electoral coalition Ratas had the biggest growth. This year, Ratas had over one third of more candidates than in the previous elections in 2009. In this year’s elections, the candidate number of political groups decreased significantly and the social democrats and the centre party of Aalto University who ran as candidates in the previous elections did not have electoral alliances at all.
In the first elections of AYY’s history in April 2009, there were 5 electoral coalitions which consisted of 22 electoral alliances. Two electoral alliances did not belong to any electoral coalition. In the elections, there were a total of 457 candidates, one of whom was not part of any electoral alliance. In the elections of the former student unions in 2007, there were a total of 318 candidates.
Aalto University Student Union AYY is a service and benefit organisation for approximately 15,000 Aalto University students. AYY acts as the advocate of its members in academic and social affairs, in particular.
Full candidate lists can be found here
Further information:
Election Coordinator Sonja Virta, sonja.virta@ayy.fi, 050 520 9421
Chair of the Central Election Committee Janne Peltola, janne.peltola@ayy.fi, 050 520 9438