Originally published on February 24th, 2009

Eleventh-hour candidate Benedict Robbins has entered the race with no experience in formal student representation.

He is further marked out from his rival candidates by his strong willingness to talk about his Christian faith and how it has motivated him to make a bid for the Presidency.

"My faith is the thing which drives me. I'm not going to be preaching to people but I believe the President should lead by example" he told The Student.

The former rapper and one-time amateur boxer is putting ‘promoting diversity and freedom of choice’ high up his agenda, and will be pushing for more non-alcoholic entertainment and non-mainstream music nights to be made available.

He sees alcoholism and the credit crunch as two of the major problems facing society today, and has a burning ambition to improve students'image in the community.

Robbins, who was encouraged to run by Gabe Arafa, an unsuccessful outsider candidate from last year's election, also makes much of  his method of researching student opinion, mostly chatting to students in the street at night.

“I’ll never implement something which people don’t suggest to me… I’m an ordinary student chasing an extraordinary vision.” he said.
Bringing back EUSA magazine Hype and having a set of ‘landlord busting’ lawyers on hand are also on his manifesto.