Divided union votes to spare president

Dermot Lohan's success in defeating the dismissal vote against him may not end the campaign to unseat him from the presidency of USI.

Delegates to an emergency national council meeting at the weekend voted against a motion to dismiss Lohan by 117 votes to 104.

In an echo of the challenge to Bill Clinton, the motion required two-thirds of the ballot to be carried, but didn't even manage a simple majority. All of USI's member universities in the Republic voted to retain him as president, as did all but two of the ITs. Lohan was opposed by universities and institutes of further education in Northern Ireland and the two Dublin ITs, plus Mary Immaculate College of Education in Limerick.

The margin of victory came as a surprise to Lohan and his deputy president, Ronan Emmet - both men had considered resigning earlier in the week because they were weary of the campaign against them.

However, the 11 votes allocated to NUI Galway, cast by the NUIG union's president in Lohan's favour, may be the subject of a challenge from that union's vice-president, who says he was authorised by the Galway union's executive to cast the votes against Lohan. Lohan he would have survived as president even if the Galway votes had been cast against him. More worrying for Lohan may be moves to increase the voting entitlement of Northern member colleges. nonetheless, he is likely to be able to rely upon a core vote of more than 100 delegates from the Republic in any vote.

Tallaght IT, the sponsors of the dismissal motion, will consider their next move at a meeting this week. The president of the students' union there, Glen Mehta, says he is worried that the process is taking up too much of the union's time: "We would rather have gotten rid of the problem in USI rather than to have to leave ourselves but disaffiliation is always an option." Meanwhile, Lohan has confirmed he will not be running for a second term of office. In fact, no outgoing full-time officer of USI will run for re-election to their position.

The education officer of UCD students' union, Charlie McConalogue, will face USI's southern area convenor, Phil Madden, in the election for president, which will take place at USI's national congress in Westport, Co Mayo, next Tuesday.

The union's welfare officer in 1997-98, Noel Clarke, will run against the part-time Irish language officer, Julian de Spainn, for the post of deputy president. Nobody had decided to run for the full-time post of welfare officer by the time the deadlines closed, and there was only one candidate for the post of education officer, Ian Russell of Mary Immaculate. Russell's only opponent in the race for education will be the "Reopen Nominations" option on the ballot paper.

The new welfare officer is likely to be decided in a ballot after the congress. The election for president seems likely to be unusually close this year. McConalogue is likely to attract support from the colleges which have backed Lohan throughout the year, while Madden should attract those who have been critical of the USI president.

However, McConalogue was not part of this year's USI administration and does have the backing of the largest university delegation in the union. These factors should make him favourite next Tuesday.

Just days before that election, USI will face another referendum on affiliation in Dublin City University. The referendum is expected to be a tight squeeze for USI. A vote by DCU students to leave USI would be a political embarrassment for Lohan, since the university is his own alma mater.

USI is likely to also face a tough referendum in NUI Galway next term, where most of the executive appear to favour Lohan's dismissal.

The University of Ulster and Tallaght IT are two other colleges which may go to the polls on their membership of the national students' union before the end of the academic year.