Candidates from the Socialist Worker Student Society have scored dramatic results in student union elections in Trinity and UCD, to the surprise of their mainstream opponents and sitting union officers. More than a third of voting students in both universities cast their ballots for the socialist candidates in the unions' presidential elections.

In UCD, Socialist Worker candidate Terry Connolly secured 35 per cent of the 3,279 votes cast and attracted the majority of votes in the arts faculty; he only got 7 per cent of the vote when he ran last year. In Trinity, Fiona Heskin got 33.8 per cent of the 3,232 votes cast.

Mainstream candidates Carol Fahy (UCD) and David Tighe (TCD) won both races, with 52 per cent and 50 per cent of the vote respectively. Fahy becomes the first woman president of the Belfield union for five years. While a Socialist Worker representative was elected President of the Trinity union as recently as 1992, the UCD result was the best showing there by a far-left candidate in many years. Turnout varied: in TCD it was up by 2 per cent on the previous year to 29 per cent, but the UCD turnout was just above half that of the previous two years.

Both socialist candidates ran campaigns calling for the student maintenance grant to be doubled and focused on the shortage of accommodation affordable to students. Connolly's campaign slogans in UCD were "For a Fighting Students' Union" and "Tax the Rich. Double the Grant", while Fiona Heskin went for the equally unambiguous "For a Return to Student Radicalism". National and local student unions have switched in recent years from campaigning on issues such as abortion information to a more specific focus on third-level education. With that has come a change in tactics: unions are more likely to send a well researched submission to the offices of college administrators than they are to occupy them.

Some officers see the increased vote for socialist candidates as an indication that students are beginning to tire of the more conventional approach. TCD's students' union president, Adrian Langan, says many students are nostalgic for the radicalism of previous years.

"There's a certain number of people who hark back to the good old days in misty-eyed tones. They expect to see the union involved in occupations and campaigns on all sorts of issues. The day-to-day stuff we do is by its nature boring. There's nothing that's very sexy about drafting submissions to the college authorities. On the other hand, while shouting and roaring might get great press, it doesn't always achieve a lot."

Langan says students are telling his union` "You've got to be a bit more proactive about what you do and how you go about it."

However, the TCD entertainments officer, Declan Forde, reckons Heskin would have had more success with the same message if she were not a member of the Socialist Worker group. "I think there are a substantial number of people who will dismiss any candidate who's associated with the Socialist Workers," Forde says. "What she was saying during her campaign was fairly spot on and well thought out, and she came across to voters as a nice person who you could trust. But the Socialist Worker label undermines any candidate."

At UCD, union education officer Charlie McConalogue says the vote garnered by Connolly was "a bit of a shock. He was a better Socialist Worker candidate than we've seen for years. He didn't do so well last year, partly because he fell ill in the middle of the race. This year he organised a very tight campaign at a time when the campaign of the conventional candidate was unusually low key."

Indeed, McConalogue says Connolly could have won the election had he been less preoccupued by occupations and demonstrations. However, Connolly's analysis of the dramatic increase in his support was more upbeat.

In the University Observer Connolly wrote that the election was proof that students had "moved leftwards" and were rejecting the conservative influence of debating societies. Most students, he said, are "somewhere to the middle . . . reformist" - influenced by having been "forced to live in the world outside UCD", he wrote. "They have to pay rent, many have to work in order to pay their way through college . . . their experience has shaped their ideas.".

Students are, he said, "disgusted with the scapegoating of refugees" and "the scandal of Haughey", and want to see people like Tony O'Reilly and institutions like AIB more heavily taxed, he claims. After all, a "sizeable number" of students voted for a candidate who advocated rent controls, taxing the wealthy, and a return to student protests, he argues. However, Connolly wasn't about to let 1,000 votes go to his head. When asked by the University Observer whether he was happy that so many students had given him their first preference, he said: "If you are a socialist you have to be prepared to stand up and be counted. To quote Lenin: `An ounce of struggle is worth more than a tonne of votes.' "