I’m back from London and have had a beautiful time (it’s impossible to not have a good time in such a city! ) but I wanna make a quick post about something else first.

The Stockholm School of Economics, or rather the student association, SASSE, is entering a special time of the year. Not the holiday season, but the election season.

Every year, we elect the new association board, the student council and some other positions, after a month or so of campaigns. Since the student association has so much power, both over education and entertainment, this is an essential process and a lot of fun.

It’s not all fun, though, at least not in my opinion. A tradition we have is the hecklings, where candidates are questioned on stage about their candidacy, personality and so on. While it’s a good way to get an impression of a person, it’s very biased towards charismatic people who are funny on stage, which doesn’t necessarily mean one is better suited for a position.

I also have an issue with the public humiliation aspect of it. Hecklers’ duty are to be funny and illuminating, but there are definitively instances where it has gone too far. And suddenly, it’s not funny anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I love hecklings, perhaps a bit hypocritical of me, but sometimes I leave them with a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.