Editor’s note: the editors apologizes for publishing this article later than usual. We had problems with publishing.

We all know what happens when a tyrant takes charge of a nation. History books seem to be filled with numerous accounts of how one man’s ambition can lead a nation through unimaginable progress and horrendous destruction all in the same instance.

The UNIS student Senate have recently revealed a rewrite draft of the constitution. The new draft calls for a restructuring of how events are coordinated and who is to be given executive power in the group, more information on the change can be found here.

In the current structure the student Senate is made up of two separate bodies the student representatives, and the event coordination branch. In this system, the Student Reps work essentially as the legislative branch responsible for coming up with events, while the event coordination branch acts as the executive branch, with the task of  actually carry out these events. In this model, the student Senate is able to retain the democracy aspect of previous designs while streamlining the process of coordinating event by creating a specialized group. The President and other Officers are responsible for facilitating discussion during meetings as well as organization of the senate, ensure success of school events.

However, in this new draft the President seems to have taken a much more aggressive position in the process of planning and executing events.  The new constitution advocates for a more centralized government system where the discussion of the event is only between the top three positions the President, Head of Student Rep, and Head of Events.  The new student representative role, dubbed “minions”, is simply to carry out work assigned by their leader. These Student Reps, who were given the task of representing the desire of the student body as a whole, have now become obsolete.

What does this mean? Is the President trying to take control of the student Senate for himself? Now before you start sharpening pitchfork and print out your “viva la revolución UNIS” posters let’s consider the possible reason behind this change.

In the political world, a shift toward fusion of power is often aimed to grant a particular party absolute power in the system. This is because there is no other political party with the power to counteract and limit if all of the power is held by one group. However this is not the case in the student senate situation as the senate themselves is inherently limited in their power. The student Senate does not hold any actual authority over the student body but rather acts as an extension of their will. In other terms the student body expresses their desire and the Senate works with the school to make that desire a reality. Therefore the true purpose for these changes is likely to make the process of organizing events easier to manage.

However it is not to say that this change does not have its flaws. With the change of Student Rep, theoretically, the majority of the decision will be determine through democratic voting but execution is based on the choice of few individuals. This raises question of the effectiveness of this method in representing the desire of the student body as a whole. After all, there student representatives were elected by the student themselves and with them carry the responsibility of expressing the wants of the student. How can they carry out their role if they are to be made obsolete, and treated simply as a force of labor.

It is understandable that a desire to shift to an oligarchy centralized system of control; after all it is much easier to manage and allows for event to be organized much quicker. Nonetheless there must also be a balance in the understanding that the senates are to act as a voice representing the entire student body, and not just an event generating group.