Zing Who?

An imaginary candidate beat two real people in the Peterhouse JCR elections last week.

Zing Xhu, a Compsci who “very few people have met”, ran for Freshers’ Rep. He was proposed by two other imaginary people, David Hou and Kevin Cheng.

Despite not existing, Xhu beat two other candidates, coming 6th in the election.

At the hustings, Petrean Tom Wood explained Xhu wasn’t able to attend as he had organised a raid on World of Warcraft.

Wood told The Tab: “A friend of mine decided to sign up Zing just to see if anyone actually noticed.

“I agreed in a mildly inebriated state to write and deliver a proxy speech on Zing’s behalf.”

Highlights of Wood’s speech on Xhu’s behalf include details of his plans to replace: “the boat club BBQ and similar sports events with an online simulation,” and to introduce: “computer virus based analogies into the sexual health awareness talk.”

Richard Dearden, who eventually won Freshers’ Rep, said: “I wasn’t at first aware that he was imaginary. It definitely livened up hustings.”

Wood admitted he had inside help, saying: “Obviously, in order to get Zing onto the ballot it required the help of members of the current JCR. The outgoing president and secretary made the whole campaign possible.”

Wood said: “Informal exit polls taken immediately after hustings suggested a landslide victory for Zing. While I’m bitterly disappointed that Zing didn’t win, I’m also pleased that he did as well as he did.”

Despite Xhu’s relative success, new Freshers’ Rep Dearden said he didn’t plan to adopt any of Xhu’s policies. He said: “However tempting it is to turn the freshers week pub crawl into an internet cafe crawl, no, I will not be adopting any of his policies.”

Read Xhu’s full manifesto: