Reader’s note: This story is satirical in nature and published in a spoof issue.
In response to years of ineptitude, petty infighting and uninspired campaign slogans, students voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to hand control of the Stickupyourass Association Senate to a distant militant Islamist organization.
Just two months after securing a majority in the West Bank and Gaza, candidates from the Palestinian political party Hamas managed to win every legislative seat in this year’s SA elections, earning roughly two-thirds of the 912 votes cast. The victory is the biggest mandate for any slate in recent memory.
The group’s sweeping victory comes despite a relative lack of campaigning, vast geographic disadvantages and the party’s vow to exterminate upwards of 60 percent of the GW student body. Observers say it is a sign of just how detached the current SA leadership has become.
Indeed, the victory is fitting for a political party that seems to be building a reputation for supplanting ineffective regimes. Several students said that after past experiences with the SA, Hamas simply seemed more concerned with their needs.
“When I went to my senator after getting locked out of my first three housing options, he made a bunch of exaggerated head nods and said he’d look into it,” sophomore Heywood Jawblowme said. “When I went to Hamas, they pulled a loaded U-Haul truck outside Fulbright and blew a hole through the CLLC office. I still don’t have housing, but the flames were pretty sweet.”
Another factor could be name recognition. Some suggested that the SA has grown so distant that average students are more familiar with a third-world, religious-political party headquartered halfway around the globe.
“To be honest, I’m still not exactly sure what the SA is or what they’re supposed to do, but these guys are on the front page of The Times like every three days,” said junior Dan Bickerstaff, who voted as an excuse to check his e-mail in the Marvin Center computer lab. “When I saw the name, I just clicked it.”
However, losing candidates denied any holistic explanations, almost unanimously blaming their failures on each other. Some offered highly specific examples of their colleagues’ misdeeds, which they said reflected poorly on all of them.
“I think what we’re seeing here is anger over Executive Vice President Corr-Upt’s egregious violation of Section 16(c) of the Senate Bylaw 704, as last amended in 1999,” said former candidate Suke Noah, referring to a statute prohibiting campaign posters within 10 feet of traffic lights. “Unfortunately, the reaction was an embracing of militant Islamist fundamentalism, and that’s something we all have to live with.”
Defeated candidates also moved quickly to criticize the new leadership, lambasting Hamas legislators for sporadic attendance at Senate finance meetings and indifference to constitutional reform in lengthy diatribes on The GW Bitchslap Blog.
