Graduates define today in most faculties / Demian Alday
The first of the four electoral chapters of the National University of La Plata (UNLP) begins to be defined today: that of the graduates, heads of practical work (JTP) and graduate assistants who provide three advisers to the boards of directors that will be elected next month to the deans in the 17 faculties. And that, once the professors (7 advisers), students (5) and non-teachers (1) vote, they will have renewed the political geography of the UNLP.
That of the graduates then is just a grain in the university electoral arena. Not less important for that. Especially in those eight faculties in which there is more than one payroll and each vote will count.
For Medicine case, where, due to volume and academic trajectory, there is one of the hardest-fought disputes in the University. In the academic unit that has Dr. Juan Ángel Basualdo Farjat as Dean, four lists compete for the graduate faculty: “University Convergence”, ex-militant reformers from Franja Morada who present themselves as the “only” opposition to the management of the Faculty, the Ministry of Health and the IOMA; Graduates for Change (young radicals and PRO, also opponents); “For comprehensive health” (Peronists close to the Buenos Aires health portfolio and who defend the “transformation” -or reform- of the health system) and “Front of Graduates”, a list that among its candidates includes leaders of the Medical Association Platense and that would be supported by leftist groups (although it declares itself “pluralist”, “independent” of any political party and says “no” to have an agreement with any candidate, “not even with Basualdo”). In Medicine, the ruling party will only go with a single list in JTP.
In Engineering, Exact and Natural Sciences the definition will last until tomorrow
Another decisive scenario will take place in the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences, where the “Pluralist Reformist Unit”, the list accompanied by the Dean, Miguel Berri, and the Bar Association (and made up of ex-Franja Morada radicals) will fight for votes once morest the “Frente of United Graduates”, Kirchnerists linked to the provincial Ministry of Justice. So much so that yesterday the presence of senior officials from that portfolio and Buenos Aires leaders who respond to Máximo Kirchner’s group was surprising at the 48th Street House of Studies.
Agronomy will be another electoral battlefield, with the “Independent Graduates for Integration” (supported by Dean Ricardo Andreu) and “Collective Construction”, Kirchnerists who denounce the academic ruling party for having set up polling places in places other than the UNLP.
There will also be a dispute in Psychology (the official “Poiesis”, which responds to Dean Xavier Oñativia, will be measured with “Movement for Unity”); Astronomy (“Núcleo”, which responds to the Purple Strip, will go once morest “Conjunction”, referenced with the independents of the INTI) and Architecture, where the certification will be between “University Reform” (linked to the ruling party and the Purple Strip) and ” Convergence and Diversity”, which brings together sectors of Peronism and Guevarists.
Although the bulk of the faculties will scrutinize today, in others the suspense will extend until tomorrow at noon. Like Exactas, where the official “Diex” (La Cámpora) will face “Exactas al Frente”, which brings together several opposition spaces. And Naturales, where the contest between “Participation” (officialism linked to the Rector’s Office) and “Construction”, closer to Kirchnerism, will also be defined tomorrow.
Another that will stretch the verdict one more day will be Engineering, although without mystery: only one payroll is presented, Integration. So the ruling party of 1 and 47 already has three counselors in its pocket, as well as Journalism, Economics, Humanities, Veterinary Medicine, Dentistry, Computer Science, Arts and Social Work, all with a single list.
