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Students' Party slate jump-starts MSA race

Nearly two months before election day, the Students' Party announced its presidential slate Tuesday -- kicking off the Michigan Student Assembly's winter '96 election season.

Jonathan Freeman, MSA International Student Affairs Commission chair, and LSA Rep. Olga Savic are the party's nominees for MSA president and vice president respectively.

The first team to announce its candidacy, the ticket's vice presidential candidate was a little reluctant to compete for the position, Freeman said.

"Becoming president or vice president was never part of the grand scheme," Savic said.

Savic said frustrations with the internal workings of the assembly prompted her candidacy, after almost prompting her departure from the assembly.

"If you leave, you're giving up," she said. "And I don't believe in giving up."

Freeman also listed improving internal MSA affairs, as well as external relations, goals for the ticket.

"The vision is that students need to be involved in the administration process. Empower not just MSA, empower students -- make people feel their opinions matter," he said.

Freeman accused the current Michigan Party administration, led by MSA President Flint Wainess and Vice President Sam Goodstein, of stifling members with unpopular ideas and creating the "frustrating" environment that had alienated Savic.

"MSA should be an exchange for ideas and empowering people when it's used right," Freeman said. "The president should be helping the assembly, whether he agrees or disagrees."

"A real leader listens to what's going on and lets that shape what direction we're going to take," Savic said.

Wainess questioned Freeman and Savic's abilities to generate those ideas.

"Students want a reasonable, not a radical approach to student government," Wainess said. "Students want ideas, not ideology. Jonathan and Olga bring only ideology, not ideas."

Wainess also criticized the Students' Party for the early release of its slate.

"It's wasteful," he said. "It impedes good governance when people are politicking months before the election."

Since the party had chosen its candidates, Freeman said, there was no reason not to release the names.

"You want the candidates you solicit ... to feel that you know what you're talking about and you know what you're doing -- and we do," Freeman said.

Savic, an LSA junior, said her time at the University has taught her that although there "are other ways than MSA to help students," an official position on the assembly may be the most effective way to do so.

"It's not always possible if you don't have some measure of power within the organization," Savic said.

Freeman, an LSA junior experienced the lack of that power this semester -- his bid for re-election to the assembly in the fall was denied. Although this defeat was a concern to the Students' Party and to himself, it shouldn't have too great an effect on the ticket as a whole, Freeman asserted.

"Their presidential candidate couldn't even win a seat in the assembly as a representative," Goodstein said.

The executive power of the president and vice president needs to be used to support student groups on campus in any weather, Freeman said.

"Our vision is that student services need to be supported -- continually they are helped when they are in trouble and then forgotten," Freeman said.

MSA involvement with Student Legal Services and the Ann Arbor Tenants Union are examples of situations where support should be continued even after the immediate danger is over, he said.

Representatives of the Michigan and Wolverine parties said the other two major parties of the assembly have no plans to release their tickets soon.