Elections are supposed to be noisy. Messy. Full of ambition and disagreement. They are meant to invite debate, demand persuasion, and force candidates to earn public trust. What we have today, however, feels quieter. Less like a vote, more like a coronation waiting to place someone on the throne.
It has been more than a year since the last Supreme Student Government (SSG) Special Elections were held in May 2024. Now, halfway through Academic Year 2025–2026, we find ourselves holding another Special Elections, again.
However, there’s a question echoing across the campus and in the comment sections: Where is everyone else?
There is only one party running.
One presidential candidate. One vice-presidential candidate. A slate of senators and representatives that fills schools and departments. Independent candidates are also in the race, offering alternative individual candidacies alongside the party lineup.
For the top two positions, no other students stepped forward. No rivals. Just a clear path forward.
Notably, the presidential and vice-presidential aspirants are former SSG officers and are no strangers to the palace. They have governed before, and now return, next in line, as if tradition quietly insists that leadership circulates best among those already inside the walls.
This is not to doubt their capabilities. Royal blood, after all, often comes with training.
But elections are not meant to function like monarchies. Democratic leadership is not supposed to be inherited—passed carefully from one familiar name to another while the rest of the kingdom watches in respectful silence.
Yet that is what this election feels like: a succession, not a selection.
There is no clash of ideas, no battle of visions, no rivalry worth arguing over in hallways and online spaces. There is no sense of risk. The ballot reads less like a choice but more like a formality—an invitation to approve an already written list of successors.
But to be clear, there is no one to blame here. If anything, this moment reflects a larger truth: leadership opportunities exist, but participation does not always follow.
This is also not the first time such a scenario has happened. Past SSG elections have similarly seen lone candidates for high positions, quietly normalizing an idea that competition is optional and leadership is automatic.
An election shaped by absence exposes disengagement. It tells us that many students no longer see leadership as something they can claim, only something they can observe.
So today, as votes are cast, we must ask: are we practicing democracy, or merely witnessing the passing of the crown?
If we want real democracy, this cycle must end. Choice requires participation. Scrutiny requires alternatives. Election only becomes meaningful when more than one person is willing to stand, be questioned, and be challenged.
A student government should never resemble a royal family. Because the moment power feels inherited rather than earned, leadership becomes something students merely accept, not actively choose.
Column by James Magayon