This post has a disclaimer…

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When the  nights get longer and you start feeling a certain restless fever in the foggy valley of the Woluwe creek, it is a clear sign that the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Parents Association of our school is approaching. It is election time! The AGM is the assembly of all  APEEE Woluwe class representatives. The Woluwe European School is a big school, so this means an assembly of over 500 people. During the AGM, Class Representatives elect  members of the APEEE Board. The Board is the governing body of the Parents Association.

These elections are really amusing to watch; it is like watching a Netflix series full of power games and West Wing style politics. The sad part is that these are elections for a parents’ association where most parents are employed by organisations that support, promote and uphold democratic values.

The “official” election campaign

The election process is straightforward and simple. Before the date of the AGM there is an open call for candidates. Those that respond to the early call for candidates may send a slide with some information about themselves and their motivation to run for the Board. Candidates may also present themselves at the AGM itself.

The  candidates are unknown to the parents’ community until the day of the election. At the AGM each candidate has a two-minute slot to present themselves. Two minutes, no more no less, with – ‘if necessary’ – the chair cutting the candidate’s microphone in the middle of a sentence… The aforementioned slide will be on display during the candidate’s two minutes speech.

Yes, it may sound like  a joke, but it really is like that. Whatever skills and experience you may have, you need to squeeze  it in those two minutes.

The “unofficial” election campaign

The election campaign might seem boring or even non-existent to most parents. No banners, no slogans and no debate nights. Actually, the most interesting things apparently happen behind the scenes and away from the public eye. Very often, in advance of the AGM, some Board members, who appear to have privileged early access to the draft list of candidates, use this information to send (unsolicited) voting recommendations to Class Representatives of their language section. Thanks to  Saint Anthony, the patron Saint of missing things, who was very kind to find and send me a few emails that would have  otherwise gone astray, we have confirmation that in 2021 there were at least three instances of this type of situation. These came from Board members who represent the French, German and Italian language sections.

Let me be clear: voting recommendations are not against the rules and are even understandable under the circumstances. Class Representatives tend to ask for these recommendations because they will only know who the candidates are at the AGM and there they will only have a two minute presentation of each candidate to make up their minds. Moreover, sometimes Class Representatives want to know if candidates from other sections are not going against the strategic interests of their section. So a recommendation coming from a Board member can be very appealing, especially when the APEEE Board does have a lot of moral credit.

However, it also seems that throughout the years, sometimes these recommendations have resulted in block-voting. Some Board members seem to agree among themselves on the names to be recommended and proceed to promote each other’s candidates within their sections. It is a sort of barter – if you promote my candidate I will promote yours. This system does not seem to promote candidates for their merit, but instead seems to be based on copinage and pure power play. It does remain a mystery to me however, what ‘power’ parents are bartering for, because this is just a volunteer parents association (although one with a big budget)!

For the candidates there is still another challenge. If you want to promote yourself before the election, even if you are a Class Representative candidate, then without the support  of a Board member who has good connections in other sections, you will only have access to the Class Representatives of your section. This is for the simple reason that there are no cross-language section communication channels in our parents’ community. For candidates who are not Class Representatives it gets even worse. Without the support of a Board member, they will only have access to the class representatives of their children’s class and a ridiculous two minutes to present themselves on the day of the AGM!

2021 block voting on steroids

During the 2021 election, this system of block voting apparently went on steroids. A senior Board Member and former Chair of the APEEE from the Italian language section went to the extreme of blacklisting four candidates from other language sections and explicitly recommended that the Class Representatives of her section should not vote for them… That explains why my name shows up in that message with a strikethrough. And the curious thing is I never met or talked to that Board member in my life and I have no idea what my crime was to deserve being blacklisted.

Board Members from the German section were a bit smarter and did not issue negative vote recommendations. Instead, they recommended, among others, a possible candidate from the Dutch section that nobody in the Dutch section had ever heard of as she had never presented herself to the section. This is block voting at its extreme: section places can be won by out-of-section votes and candidates unknown to the section can get section seats in the Board. In the end, since this ‘ghost’ candidate never came forward for election at the AGM, we will never know whether that was part of the election power game strategy or whether it was just a cynical mistake…

The electoral office…

If by now you are thinking that it cannot possibly get any worse, then, dear reader, you are wrong… Some of those Board members that sent or co-signed those messages with recommendations  were members of the electoral office (aka the tellers). the tellers are a group of APEEE members who are not running in the elections and are supposed to oversee the election process and ensure that the democratic rules are applied. However, by sending these messages the tellers were using privileged information to give voting recommendations. They were therefore interfering with the election and breaking the most basic rules of democracy: an electoral office is supposed to be impartial and ensure free and fair  elections, not to influence and manipulate them!

It seems this was done by at least three of the tellers:

• the same senior Italian section Board member that issued the negative vote  recommendations,
• A senior and outgoing Board Member from the German section who was at the time a vice-president of the APEEE Board (she co-signed the German letter),
• And another Board Member from the German section who is currently a vice-president of the APEEE Board (he also co-signed the German letter).

But the ‘icing on the cake’ in this affair came from the President of the electoral office who herself issued the negative voting indications. If being a member of the electoral office means acting with the utmost care and respect for the democratic and electoral rules and principles, then the person presiding this group should be the beacon of impartiality and transparency. And this is when we realise the full extent of their hypocrisy: the  President of the electoral office wrote to the Italian section “…that (the Board had) worked with the utmost respect for every rule of democracy…” Ladies and gentlemen, if that is true, then, from now on, please address me as Mr. Kent, Mr. Clark Kent.

In the APEEE elections, candidates do not have access to cross sectional communication platforms. Instead, a small number of senior Board members who seem to have an interest in promoting themselves and other like minded candidates, act as the gatekeepers of the election process. This gatekeeping practice has the power to determine the outcome of the elections and the net result is a flawed election process.

A time for change

Now that you are familiar how the system works – or rather doesn’t, depending how you look at it – I would like you to consider the following questions:

• What is in the best interest of the parents? To have a limited number of candidates who get elected based on block votes and power play? Or the widest possible diversity of candidates from our enthusiastic & committed parents’ community?
• Would you let a group of people that seemingly have no regard for the rule of law manage your bank account? If not, why would you allow them to manage the APEEE budget that is over 6 million euro?

While I have a few ideas on how to ensure a free and fair election for all candidates I would prefer to hear from you first. So, please take a moment to reflect on what kind of APEEE you would like and, if you have any ideas and suggestions, please send them to editorial@thewoluwediaries.blog. The Woluwe Diaries, with all respect for your privacy, will then publish a follow up post.