Global Intifada

MSA National has recently announced the results of this year’s elections. The purpose of this article is to discuss several problems in the election process that have arisen year after year. For the record, I e-mailed the Election Committee with my concerns and a month has gone by and I have still not received a response, so I am posting my thoughts here with a full exposition of the various issues that seem to be emanating from the annual elections. Throughout the years, the annual elections have been marred by inconsistencies, delays, and an insufficient number of candidates to fill in the various positions. During the 2007 elections, many MSA chapters were denied the ability to nominate candidates and vote in the elections because they were not informed that they had not paid their dues. Additionally, candidates weren’t informed that they were not eligible for nominations because they did not fulfill additional qualifications, because they had not been properly advertised. Moreover, MSA National had problems communicating this information with the various MSA chapters, in spite of having a paid staff in Northern Virginia who were hired in order to keep track of the various MSA chapters across the country.

This year, the elections were conducted in a much more efficient manner. For one thing, the MSA National website was totally revamped and updated on a much more frequent basis, making information regarding the elections much more unambiguous and accessible. The rules regarding the elections were posted on the MSA National website and distributed through e-mails. MSA chapters were informed if they had paid their dues and were thus qualified to nominate individuals for the various positions and if they had not paid their dues, they were given a dead line to do so. In spite of these improvements, there were nonetheless several problems. One of the problems was that not all of the information on the website was accurate and there was some MSAs that needed to re-affiliate were accidentally classified as being affiliated. The most notable problem was that several candidates were only informed of their nomination a few days before the deadline for accepting nominations. In some instances, candidates were given only 24 hours to comply with the additional requirements of getting two recommendations from community members and writing a personal essay. What made matters worse was that these conditions were given to candidates during the middle of exam period. Furthermore, like last year, there were not a sufficient number of votes to legitimize the elections (the Constitution of MSA National requires that a certain percentage of MSA chapters vote in order to have a sufficient quorum). For this reason, the deadline for voting was extended twice. However, extending the deadline for voting twice didn’t seem to help much since there are several positions that, like last year, remained unfulfilled even after the voting period came to a closure. Clearly MSA National has a long way to go before its elections are conducted in an efficient, transparent, and fair manner.

            Regardless of the technical problems that illustrate the incompetence in conducting something as basic as an election every year, what is more important is the legitimacy of the elections themselves. There is a significant amount of evidence that indicates that the Constitution of the organization is being directly and indirectly violated. These violations include (1) completely avoiding the delegate system that is required in Article III, Section 4; (2) violating the requirement that each delegate, not each MSA, be given one vote; (3) violating the amendment procedure, (4) altering the terms of the candidates. The entire Constitution is available here and you can read out the various e-mails concerning the election process as well here.

Article III, Section 4 of the Constitution of MSA National sets up the structure of the delegate system. “In all matters related to this Constitution, a Chapter shall be represented by its duly elected President and by members of its executive body when said members have been duly authorised by the executive body and this authorisation has been conveyed to the President of the MSA. Such representatives shall be called Delegates and their number shall equal one per 100 bona fide members of the Chapter, subject to a minimum of one and a maximum of five, and subject to rounding fractional representation to the nearest whole digital number.” This means that each MSA should theoretically have 1 to 5 delegates, depending on the size of their MSA. If there was an MSA that had 500 bona fide members, they would get 5 delegates. However, the delegate system has been completely absconded within its entirety. Not a single MSA chapter utilizes this system when interacting with MSA National. While this may seem like a trivial issue, it is important because it affects the next violation, the election process itself.

            The next major violation exists in Article VII, which governs the process by which elections are conducted. Article VII states that the “[e]lection of Executive Committee members shall be held by mail ballot sent to each Delegate at the official address of the Chapter he represents. Each Delegate shall have one vote.” Instead of utilizing the delegate system, MSA National grants each MSA chapter a single vote. This results in disparities between voting powers. An MSA with 500 members is given the same vote as an MSA with only 5 or 6 people. The delegate system is more democratic in that more members of MSA’s get to vote. In effect, what the current election system does by only allowing MSA chapters to get one vote instead of the constitutionally mandated graduated vote is that it does away with the “popular vote.” Thus, not only has the MSA National executive council repeatedly violated the constitution, they have done so in an undemocratic manner. Article VII goes on further to establish the importance of the delegate system: “The total number of valid mail ballots received from this first mailing shall have to exceed thirty percent of the total Delegates to render the election valid. Failing to achieve this, a second mailing shall take place to Delegates who did not vote in the first ballot.” Again, the Constitution makes it clear that in order for an election to be considered valid, 30% of the total delegates (not the MSA chapters alone), must participate in them. This has not been happening for quite some time.

            Another violation of the Constitution, albeit a minor one, is that the terms of the officers has been altered from two years to one year. Article V, Section 4 states that “[e]ach member of the Executive Committee shall hold office for a period of two years provided that he does not hold the same office for more than four consecutive years.” However, for the past few years, the officers have held only one year terms. It could be argued that it is too difficult for officers to fulfill their duties and also be students at the same time. Assuming for the sake of the argument that this is true, then the proper remedy is to amend the Constitution, not violate it. Moreover, there are alternative ways to address the problem, such as by transforming the organization from one that is comprised of volunteers who will never have the time, money, and resources to lead the national American Muslim collegiate community, into a truly national organization with paid positions so that the officers can devote all of their time, energy, and resources into the task of forging the national community.

            How could such flagrant violations of the Constitution occur? There have been two defenses: first, that the Constitution itself authorizes the Executive Committee to set up the details of the elections in their entirety, and, second, that the procedures used by MSA National are in accordance with unapproved by-laws to the Constitution. Last year, when me, Mujahideen Ryder, Maniac Muslim, and Ahmed Salim, spoke with the President at the time, Mohammed Sheibani, he cited the clause in Article VII that states that “[t]he Executive Committee shall determine all other details of the elections process.” However, we pointed out to him that the operative phrase in the clause was “all other details”, which creates the inference that the previous clauses of the Constitution are to be applied first before any details are to be filled in. In other words, the Executive Committee may develop qualifications for candidates and set the general time frame for the elections, but they cannot alter the overall structure of the Constitution itself. Moreover, assuming for the sake of the argument that the Executive Committee was authorized to blatantly violate the express structure set up in the Constitution, the clause granting them such power to do so sets up an obvious conflict of interest: how can current Executive Committee officials alter or avoid the constitutionally mandated procedures for elections when many of them are still in office? For example, this year, a previous member of the Executive Council, which appointed the Election Committee and gave it general guidelines for how to conduct the elections, was nominated in this year’s and ended up winning it. I am not making the argument that insider decision making occurred, but regardless, it is unprofessional, undemocratic, and unfair to have such a system.

            The second argument in defense of the manner in which MSA National has conducted its own elections is that there are a set of proposed amendments to the Constitution that were never fully ratified. I was informed of these unapproved by-laws by a member of last year’s election committee. To be fair, I have not seen these by-laws with my own eyes, but I consider the person who gave me this information to be reliable. Assuming for the sake of the argument that there are unapproved amendments or by-laws to the Constitution that authorizes the Executive Committee to violate the Constitution in such a flagrant manner, at the very least, they could post them up on their website so that the general public is aware of these violations. Of course, even then, there is still the fact that they are unapproved, which violates the amendment process set forth in the Constitution. Article XI of the Constitution establishes the following rules for making amendments: “1. Amendments to this constitution shall be submitted in writing to the President of MSA, not less than sixty days prior to the House of Delegates annual meeting. 2. The Executive Committee, after approving a proposed amendment by a simple majority, shall present it to the House at its annual meeting. 3. A two-thirds vote of the Delegates present in person or by proxy, shall be necessary for the adoption of an amendment.” Thus, in order for amendments to the Constitution to be valid, they must be approved by two-third of the Delegates present at the annual meeting. Now, MSA national can make the argument that it is difficult to get people to attend the annual meeting, which is often held at ISNA, since not everyone can attend. However, the Constitution doesn’t clarify how many delegates must attend, merely that two-thirds of them must approve the amendments. Theoretically speaking, if only three delegates showed up to the annual meeting and two of them approved of the proposed amendment, then it would be an amendment. It is virtually impossible that every single year, not a single delegate shows up to the annual meeting. More importantly, the argument that there aren’t enough delegates is fallacious since the Constitution enables the Delegates to send in their votes through proxy. The concept of proxy-voting is commonplace in corporate law. Shareholders engage in proxy-voting by delegating a person to vote for them at annual shareholder’s meetings. They can either have a general delegation where the proxy-voter can vote however he chooses or the shareholder can grant a specific delegation in which case the proxy-voter can only vote as the shareholder desires. If the proxy voter fails to do so, then the vote itself will be discounted. If this is the concept that the Constitution’s clause on proxy voting was based on, then the Executive Committee has no justification for failing to present the by-laws at the annual delegates meeting since Delegates not able to attend the annual meeting can simply submit a proxy vote to a Delegate who is or through alternative means such as by sending their instructions in writing.

            Article XI is important for another reason: it reveals how the Executive Committee’s substitution of “Delegate” for “MSA Chapter” is contradictory. The Executive Committee will probably argue that the Delegate system is flawed since its hard to keep track of MSA Chapters, let alone Delegates. However, this argument is still flawed because if their substitution for “MSA Chapter” in place of “Delegate” in their interpretation of Article III (The Delegate System) and Article VIII (Delegates Voting Power) was justified, then the Executive Committee would have replaced the term “Delegate” with “MSA Chapter” in Article XI (Amendments). In other words, if “MSA Chapter” has truly replaced “Delegate” in the Constitution, then why didn’t MSA National submit the unapproved by-laws to the MSA Chapters? Thus, assuming for the sake of the argument that the Executive Committee was justified in not following the amendment procedure set forth in Article XI because the delegate system is flawed, the proper remedy is not to arbitrarily pronounce amendments on its own, but to submit the amendments for approval to the various MSA Chapters. Again, if the problem is that it is too difficult to communicate with the MSA Chapters and determine how many members which then determines how many delegates they should get, then the proper remedy is to first make a good faith effort to correct that problem and, if it fails to do so, then amend the Constitution and absolve the delegate system through the amendment process.

            Now, the Executive Committee can try and argue that the reason why they haven’t submitted the amendments to the various MSA Chapters is because they’ve had trouble contacting them. However, this isn’t a good argument because they are obviously in contact with some of the MSAs, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to post an updated list of the MSAs that are affiliated on their website. Moreover, the problem of a lack of communication and participation doesn’t seem to be emanating from the various MSA Chapters, but from MSA National itself. Last year, several bloggers congregated together to conduct a survey on the state of MSA National. The survey was open for several days and 89 individuals responded and represented over 64 schools from 18 states or provinces. Of these 89 responses, 50 of them belonged to MSA Chapters that were affiliated. 46.1% of them stated that they had no contact with MSA National. 28.1% said that they attempted to contact MSA National but never got a response. 19.1% of the respondents stated that their communication with MSA National was fair. Only 6.7% of the respondents stated that correspondence with MSA National was excellent. What was most interesting about the survey was that 46% of the respondents who were linked to MSA National directly (former officer of the executive committee, appointee, conference chair, etc) stated that communication was either poor or non-existent. Thus, the statistical information seems to indicate that the failure of communication is not at the MSA Chapter end, but the MSA National Executive Committee end. Arguing that the amendments were not sent to the MSA Chapters for approval due to an alleged failure of communication cannot be made when it there is no good faith effort at communicating. Again, assuming for the sake of the argument that individuals cannot make it to the annual meeting, the Constitution authorizes the proxy vote system.

            In conclusion, it is clear that the Executive Committee of MSA National has directly and indirectly violated its own Constitution year after year. The possible arguments used to justify the Constitution are at best, weak, and only end up violating it further. The purpose of this post was not to bash MSA National nor encourage people to stop participating in it. Rather, the objective is the opposite: it is the firm belief of the author that the American Muslim community needs strong leadership. The reason why the weaknesses of the organization are being pointed out is to improve them in order to benefit the community as a whole. The community is not serviced by having an organization whose leadership is illegitimate and has no accountability in its activities. If the leadership has nothing to hide, then it should openly embrace transparency. This will increase publicity and foster trust. Nonetheless, it is also important to not let violations go unpunished. Thus, the proposal I have is follows: MSA Chapters should give MSA National a two year probationary period to identify and correct all of the mistakes it is making, especially with regards to the violations of the Constitutions. If it fails to do so within the two year period, then MSA Chapters should initiate a “divestment campaign” – that is, pull out their money from MSA National as a form of punitive damages. While some may decry such a tactic, it should be pointed out that the participation of MSA Chapters within MSA National itself is voluntary. With that said, I would encourage a divestment campaign and only a divestment campaign if the problems are not corrected. Any other alternative, such as lawsuits or setting up an alternative national organization for MSAs would be counter-productive and rousing fitnah and end up causing more harm than good.

May Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) give our leadership the requisite supports it needs to fulfill its obligations and grant our Ummah dominance once again. Ameen.

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