Congratulations to swami

[dj]

I have not always seen eye to eye with Swami but I want to sincerely congratulate him on his success in this election and, more importantly, his ability to increase the vote in elections in which he stands. It is a testament to the enthusiasm he engenders, even without his soulmates Whittington and Czub. I think it is Swami’s participation that has been instrumental in pushing the CCC vote to a record 197. All the elections (both CCC and CTF) in the past couple of years that have had high turnouts have been when Swami participated. I am sure this is no accident. Swami’s popularity is further shown by the fact that those he says he would also like to be elected alongside him invariably do well. Swami advocated Matthias Gemuh and Jeremy Bernstein on this occasion in CCC. Matthias got more votes than anybody else and Jeremy came an honourable fourth. It would, of course, have been a tall order to defeat Graham Banks because he always wins a lot of votes.

Swami neither participated in nor showed an interest in the current CTF election and I think this helps to explain the decline from 117 to 76 votes. Swami did not stand in the CTF election in June but he did post to name the candidates he hoped to see elected. I am sure Swami’s support helped created a record turnout and ensured that the three he favoured did well – certainly much better than many of us expected. Swami surely helped to secure Thorsten’s victory over Sam Hull by his electioneering. His ability to generate votes is almost magical.

Well done, Swami. A great achievement today and on previous occasions.