Not running this year
Karl Johanslista withdraws from this year’s election.
– Blank votes should be taken into account, as a percentage of the voters, as opposed to being thrown away. This way, it would be possible to show a commitment to society even though you are not satisfied with the candidates, Ulrik Motzfeldt says. He is leader of the political group representing Law students; Karl Johanslista (KJL).
KJL hereby withdraws from the Student Parliament Election after merely six months as an independent political group. The reason is that the group failed to produce enough candidates.
– We had an intention of running, but decided not to – primarily because students at the Faculty do not wish to get involved in student politics, Motzfeldt says.
– Ridiculed
Motzfeldt is known for his prior verbal attacks targeted against the rest of the political groups in the Student Parliament.
«KJL will not be running for Student Parliament on behalf of the Faculty of Law. This is correct. We found nobody who actually wanted to spend their spare time on being ridiculed, doubted, and silenced when trying to deal with matters in a democratic forum. As opposed to Sosialdemokratene, KJL wants to be represented by people who are genuinely interested in doing a job. We won’t fill up a list, just for the hell of it.» Motzfeldt wrote on Universitas’ debate forum early March.
– Don’t you think that people might perceive this to be whining on your part because you are unable to get enough candidates?
– We have already been told that we complain too much. This might be perceived as whining, but we are not bothered with that. People are free to interpret it that way, if they want.
Motzfeldt nevertheless admits that information from KJL might have been somewhat limited:
– It has probably not been focused that much on what the Student Parliament is, and what representatives do. This has made people feel that this doesn’t concern them as much as it should. We accept criticism for that. However, we feel that the Student Parliament are unable to provide acceptable information as well, he says.
– What is more, Law students have got the impression that student politics is all about internal conflicts.