Venstrealliansen won four extra seats and are now the largest party at the Student Parliament, in an election where 8.9 per cent of the students voted.

FOTO: Brian Olguin

- Naturally, we are very pleased with the result. We submitted party-lists at all the faculties and I’m sure that must have had an effect on the result. In addition, we have been very clear on what we want to achieve, and that we want student politics to get involved in international affairs, says Lina Johanne Strand, President of the Student Parliament (SP) and politician in the left-wing group Venstrealliansen (VA).

With thirteen seats in SP, VA is up four seats from last year, thus taking Sosialdemokratene’s place as the largest party in the Student Parliament at the University of Oslo (UiO).

The losers

Sosialdemokratene (SD) became this year’s losers, as they slid from 13 seats in 2006 to nine this year. SD’s Torkel Nybakk Kvaal, Vice-President of the Student Parliament and University Board Member, is disappointed with the result.

- We hoped to do better. Nevertheless, the result of the election is clearly a red victory, with absolute majority to the left, which means that the result is very similar to last year’s. We don’t think of this as a disaster, Nybakk Kvaal states.

- What would you say is the reason behind the poor election results?

- I think it’s a bit random. This year we didn’t have candidates at all the faculties, and at the same time two new party-lists were submitted at the faculties of medicine and law.

Standing still

Edwin Søvik from Grøn Liste (GL) is also happy with the result of the election.

- We were hoping to keep our two seats, but we actually gained one more. This is especially good results considering that we only had candidates at two faculties; the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences, he says.

Candidate for the leadership at the Student Parliament, Heine Skipenes from Fakultetslistene, doesn’t mind that the party-list from the Faculty of Social Science only secured three seats, the same amount as last year.

- We have been curious to the consequences of holding an electronic election, he says.

Moderat Gruppe (MG) is, according to Sten McNeil Ånnerud, content with securing nine seats in comparison to last year’s eight.

Satisfactory results

The two new fractions, Liberal Liste (LL) and Blå Liste (BL) had a satisfactory debut, with two seats each from the Faculty of Medicine (Med) and the Faculty of Law respectively.

- One reason why we did so well at Med, is because we were practically the only ones at the faculty with an election campaign, says leader of LL, Erling G. Hillestad.

He finds it amusing that LL secured half of the seats at Med, whereas VA and SD received one seat each.

President of BL, Dag Josef Foss Alsvik, is also very pleased with the result of the election.

- We are completely new to the voters, and so we are thrilled to have become the largest party at the faculty, with two seats at the Student Parliament. People voted for us because they agree with our opinions and the issues we promote, he states.