The process to replace impeached UCDSU president, Katie Ascough, has begun with several students putting themselves forward for consideration for the position. Barry Murphy, the Campaigns and Communications Officer, and current acting President of the SU, announced his intention to run for the position on a permanent basis in a Facebook post earlier in the week.
As well as Murphy, Rebecca Hart, who came third in the vote that elected Ms. Ascough to the position in March, has also announced her intention of joining the race to replace Ascough.
While both of these candidates are familiar faces within UCDSU, there is yet another possible candidate that it would be remiss of us to not consider. Katie Ascough.
In the immediate aftermath of the impeachment vote, which took place on October 26 & 27, and resulted in a 69% vote in favour to remove Ascough from her post, she was interviewed on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk. In the interview she was asked whether she would consider throwing her hat in the ring once more to run for president, she said that it's "not beyond the bounds of possibility" but it's "unlikely".
Now, we all know of a certain person, a certain someone, presumably rather dear to Katie's heart, who was similarly punished for having the courage to stand by his own convictions. A guy who was similarly judged and who also suffered at the hands of an unfriendly majority; but who swore to come back, to return. While this also works as a cursory rundown of the plot of the first Terminator film, I'm not making a case for some KT-800; I am of course talking about, one Jesus H. (Hilda?) Christ. He too promised a possible return, a second coming. Will Ascough take a leaf out of ol' J.C.'s book (the Bible?) and get back on the presidential horse?
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In all likelihood, probably not. However, given that the voter turnout for the initial SU elections when she was elected president, was approximately 10% of the electorate, compared to some 20% for the vote to impeach her, it seems that the vast majority of UCD students treat sabbatical elections the same way they would a large, naked man cradling three kilogrammes of raw beef in the corner of a party*; by mostly ignoring it. As such, given how mobilised and impassioned her own, relatively smaller group of supporters were, it would not be beyond the realms of possibility to imagine that if she did seek re-election, she would stand a bewilderingly good chance of regaining her office.
*I would hereby like to apologise on behalf of myeslf for this image. I'm doing a lot of soul-searching as to where the hell it came from.
