War breaks out at NSA over no confidence motion brought against President

Napier Students' Association (NSA) President Kasia Bylinska's re-election campaign is under threat after allegations of constitutional violations were made and a vote of no confidence was backed by student representatives late last week.

The NSA Student Senate meeting was presented with a motion requesting an emergency meeting for a vote of no confidence against its president.

The motion was signed by a total of eight programme representatives and brought forward on their behalf by Nathan Sparling. It gave a six point account of alleged offences by the NSA president, which Ms Bylinska denies.

Nathan Sparling is running for NSA President against Ms Bylinska and is also one of the candidates for NUS Scotland President.

Mr Sparling told The Journal: “Because of my position I was reluctant to get involved. However, the Programme Reps needed my knowledge of the constitution and ability to look into the breaches to be able to move forward with the motion.

“I understand that some might say I am doing this because I am running against Kasia for president, but this is not a personal vendetta. I am doing it for the better of the students and because I feel that having an incompetent president is doing more damage to the NSA reputation than a vote of no confidence would.”

Ms Bylinska is believed to have issued complaints to the University accusing Nathan Sparling of harassing and intimidating behaviour. These accusations were later dismissed.

A senior source said that recent events and complaints have had the students’ association in chaos.

Mr Sparling continued: “The issue has been building up over a period of time but it is after the latest breaches that it has become serious enough to put forward. I am confident we will get enough signatures from Programme Reps, and that we have the support from ordinary students as well.”

In a statement to The Journal, Ms Bylinska denied the allegations, saying: “I believe that I did not do anything unconstitutional that would be so worrying to him that he had to take such extreme steps. Also Nathan Sparling never approached me and raised his concerns about anything with me and neither did he try to resolve the matter informally.

"I was therefore very surprised to hear his request at the Senate."

Ms Bylinska was not aware that any signatures had been collected or of the specific details of the accusations held against her: “I don’t know if Nathan Sparling is deliberately withholding this information from me to make it impossible for me to prepare my defence or that there was no issue in the first place and he is just using it as a below-the-belt tactic to try to advantage himself in the elections.

"If yes then I’m surprised that Nathan Sparling does not have the confidence in himself and in his ability to win without resorting to these methods.”

If all thirty necessary signatures are gathered an Emergency Senate must be called within 48 hours, where a decision would then be made on whether or not to hold a vote of no confidence against Ms Bylinska.

According to Mr Sparling an Emergency Senate is expected to take place within a fortnight. It is unclear how this will effect the NSA elections scheduled  for 8 March.