Votes meant for the Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights in UP (STAND UP) in the 2023 student council elections seem to have funneled mostly into abstentions instead of to UP Alyansa ng mga Mag-aaral para sa Panlipunang Katwiran at Kaunlaran (UP Alyansa), according to the breakdown of results for the chairperson post.

To illustrate the shift of votes, the swings–range of support shift–were calculated by taking the average change in the voter share of two parties, particularly from STAND UP to UP Alyansa (STAND–Alyansa swing) and STAND UP to abstention (STAND–abstain swing), from 2022 to 2023. The swing margins are the difference in percentage points between both parties.

The May polls saw an unopposed chairperson candidate from UP Alyansa after STAND UP withdrew its bid for the University Student Council. Though UP Alyansa remained the sole political party left, it only managed a 30.9-percent swing from STAND UP, while abstention had an overwhelming 46.7-percent swing from the red party (see sidebar 1).

Sidebar 1: Abstain gains a majority of STAND votes

In the three colleges with the largest voting population, the swing favored abstention by a sizable margin (see sidebar 2). STAND–abstain garnered an almost 21-percent difference over STAND–Alyansa in both the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy and College of Science. Though all three colleges had historically shown little allegiance to any specific party, they remained firmly red in the 2021 and 2022 elections. 

Sidebar 2: STAND voters in the three most populous colleges swing mostly to abstain

But this was not the first instance that abstentions won over UP Alyansa as in both 2021 and 2022, the UP Diliman Extension Program in Pampanga and Olongapo, School of Statistics, and Asian Institute of Tourism consistently had higher abstentions than votes for the party. This was also the case for the College of Law in 2022; but on top of this, it was also the only college where more students abstained than voted for either STAND UP or UP Alyansa.

The difference in swings in these colleges (see sidebar 3) are also lower than the computed 13–percentage point average swing margin of all the colleges. These relatively smaller margins imply that STAND UP votes transferred somewhat evenly to both UP Alyansa and abstention in these colleges.

Sidebar 3: Colleges still choose abstention over UP Alyansa

While the higher abstention rates from these colleges only made more apparent their already low preference for UP Alyansa since 2022, there was a notable shift in favor in colleges that had voted blue last year.

The College of Business Administration (CBA) and the School of Economics, where UP Alyansa had won last year, saw a bigger swing toward abstain, leading to losses for UP Alyansa in what used to be its territory. Moreover, CBA is the only college this year to see a negative STAND–Alyansa swing of 12.7 percent, as its students voted even less for the blue party, translating into the biggest swing margin across all colleges.

Though abstention reigned in most individual colleges, seven of the 26 colleges still ended up voting blue. The College of Music, School of Labor and Industrial Relations, and Technology Management Center (TMC), each comprising only 1 percent, 0.3 percent, and 0.3 percent of the total voting population, remained loyal to Alyansa, having voted for them in 2022 as well. 

TMC, with only 31 voters, also saw a 2.1-percent swing margin favoring STAND–Alyansa (see sidebar 4), one of only two colleges to have a swing leaning more toward blue than abstain. 

Sidebar 4: Swings of colleges that voted blue in 2022 

Alyansa also managed to win over three colleges that voted for STAND UP last year, namely the College of Education (Eduk), the College of Human Kinetics (CHK), and the Archeological Studies Program (ASP) (see sidebar 5). These colleges are also among those with the lowest swing margins. 

Notably, UP Alyansa only lost to STAND UP by less than 10 percentage points in Eduk and CHK last year. The large percentage shift in ASP, on the other hand, could be anomalous as the college housed only four votes in 2022 and three in 2023.

Sidebar 5: UP Alyansa converts some red colleges

Alyansa’s wins were only in colleges in the bottom half of the university in terms of number of electorates, save for Eduk. And given the generally bigger swing from STAND UP to abstain than STAND UP to UP Alyansa across most colleges, the sole running party in the May polls drowned under abstentions.

In the upcoming special elections on October 11 to 12, all candidates for the empty chairperson, vice chairperson, and councilor positions are running as independents, continuing the shift away from party systems since 2021. ●